Moeen Ali - Moeen

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Allen & Unwin
Copyright 2018 by Moeen Ali

The moral right of Moeen Ali to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

The extract from DNA India is reproduced with the kind permission of Arunabha Sengupta.

Allen & Unwin
c/o Atlantic Books
Ormond House
2627 Boswell Street
London WC1N 3JZ

Phone: 020 7269 1610
Fax: 020 7430 0916
Email:
Web: www.allenandunwin.com/uk

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All images in the photo insert, unless otherwise credited, are Moeen Ali.

Hardback ISBN 978 1 91163 005 0
Trade paperback ISBN 978 1 91163 013 5
E-Book ISBN 978 1 76063 007 2

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PROLOGUE

THE MAGIC OF THE OVAL

As every fan knows, sport can be gloriously unpredictable and cricket is no exception. Players, fans and media experts alike are sometimes totally unprepared for a surprise outcome. One such event was when a part-time bowler became the first England spinner to take a Test match hat-trick for 79 years, on a ground staging its hundredth Test where no hat-trick has ever been taken. I still find it hard to believe that I was that bowler at the Oval when on the afternoon of 31 July 2017, just before 2.30, I got the South African number eleven, the fast bowler Morne Morkel, lbw. Nobody anticipated that I would make history, especially when you consider that there were two England bowlers who had had the opportunity to write themselves into the record books in that innings before I got Morkel. Both Ben Stokes and Toby Roland-Jones had taken two wickets in two balls in that South African second innings, Stokesy, the previous evening and Toby that very morning in the pre-lunch session. Now as Morkel was given out I felt like the man seen as a defensive midfield anchor scoring a hat-trick to win the FA Cup. And this when the forwards had not quite managed it. To make it even more special I had never taken a hat-trick in any form of cricket before, not even when I played for Moseley Ashfield as a teenager in Birmingham.

Before that magical moment at the Oval I had had much to celebrate on a cricket field: hundreds, five wickets in an innings, wins and even two wickets in two balls. But a hat-trick had eluded me and until youve actually had one you cannot imagine what a hat-trick feels like. My hat-trick also meant England won the Test, giving us a 2-1 lead with one Test to go which meant we could not lose the series and as the England team hoisted me on their shoulders I had the most amazing feeling Ive had on a cricket pitch. Ive never had that feeling. Ill never experience it again.

But although I had never imagined I would take a hat-trick in the series against South Africa, I was through that summer often doing things that had not happened for a long time. At Lords in the first Test I had taken 6 for 53 in the second innings, giving me match figures of 10 for 112. Those were not only my career-best figures in both innings, it was the first time an England spinner had taken ten wickets in a Lords Test since the legendary Derek Underwood against Pakistan in 1974. At Lords I had also made runs: 87 in the first innings, putting on 257 for the fifth wicket with skipper Joe Root who made a quite brilliant 190. This meant I had reached a nice Test all-rounders landmark of 2,000 runs and 100 wickets, the second-fastest for England since Tony Greig. Id always hoped Id get onto the board at Lords as a batsman but never thought Id be there as a bowler it was something I didnt expect but Im very proud of.

As I left Lords with the Man of the Match award the Guardian wrote, Moeen leads the team off, his body language as modest as ever. He is a pretty adorable bloke, and a fine cricketer who has finally found the perfect role in this side. Trevor Bayliss, the England coach, had put a bit of a dampener on things, saying after Lords, We selected him as a batter who bowls a bit. Maybe that has taken the pressure off. Yet through that summer I had felt no pressure as a bowler and at Trent Bridge in the second Test my 4 for 78 in the second innings were the best figures for an England off-spinner since 1956. So, I arrived in SE11 feeling quite confident. Before the start of the Test I remember thinking this could be a series where I could be consistent with both bat and ball and make contributions to help the team win. True, we had come to the Oval branded by the media as the Jekyll and Hyde team. At Lords in the first Test we had crushed South Africa by 211 runs with a day to spare in Rootys first Test as captain. Set 331 to win, South Africa had begun their second innings after lunch but were bowled out for 119 by the close, their innings lasting just 36.4 overs. Eight days later in the second Test at Trent Bridge South Africa won by 340 runs. Chasing 474, we were bowled out for 133, our second-innings capitulation coming in less than two sessions. Anyone who has played sport at a high level knows that results are everything: you are either a huge success or a major failure. There is no halfway house. Succeed and the critics will praise you to the skies, fail and they cannot wait to bury you. After Trent Bridge critics were immediately on our back, saying they never knew which England will turn up at Tests. Would it be Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde? This inconsistency was meat and drink to the to the former players turned pundits.

Geoffrey Boycott called our batting one-dimensional. Nasser Hussain said, A positive brand is not 130 all out, thats a rubbish brand of cricket. And he definitely had a point. In the warm weather at Trent Bridge Scyld Berry of the Telegraph compared our performance with ice cream: on an afternoon of gorgeous heat, he wrote, Englands batting melted away by three oclock. They were bowled out in fewer than 50 overs as South Africa won the second Test even more resoundingly than England had won the first. I was not spared, and, in a week, I went from being a pretty adorable bloke to an English ice cream that melted at the first sight of the sun. The television commentators charged me with throwing my wicket away when I was caught sweeping at square-leg in the second innings.

But despite such media criticism I and the team as a whole came to the Oval feeling far from depressed. Indeed, quite confident we could beat South Africa. You only had to see us play football in the days leading up to the Test, and even on the morning of the match, to realize how high our spirits were. The days of the double internationals have long gone the nature of modern sport means they will never return but the passion we have for the round-ball game has often made me think that in another age many of the present team would not look out of place at Wembley. I certainly would have loved, come September, to change from the whites to shorts and make the brief journey from Lords to Wembley to once again perform for England. I love football, am besotted with Liverpool and nothing would have given me greater pleasure than to run out at Wembley wearing the number nine jersey. I grew up wanting to be another Robbie Fowler. Now I fancy myself as Luis Surez, although in the 201718 season I have also seen myself as Mohamed Salah. But then which Red fan has not? With the Uruguayan Surez having used not only his feet but also his teeth I occasionally get teased, but I have never bared my fangs, not even when I am tackled by Stuart Broad, who sees himself as the defender you cannot get past. I must say our football has at times been so intense that matches have had to be stopped. To prevent injury, we play three-touch football but Jimmy Anderson and Jos Buttler, our midfield dynamos, can get so ferocious that Paul Farbrace, our assistant coach who organizes our football, often has to intervene. He has even had to stop games. Then Jimmy starts moaning so loudly about biased refereeing that I feel we could do with FIFAs Video Assistant Referee system.