Moeen Ali's Test career reeks of unfulfilled potential

For the past few years, especially since Graeme Swann’s retirement from Test cricket, England have yearned for a spinner capable of bamboozling the batters with dip, drift and guile. More importantly, they’ve wanted someone adept at holding his own, irrespective of the conditions. For a brief while, Moeen Ali seemed to tick those boxes.

For the past few years, after Kevin Pietersen was dumped out of the team and Ian Bell bid adieu, England have also been looking for a batter capable of replicating the controlled aggression Bell brought to the fore and the inherent flamboyance synonymous with Pietersen. England thought they had found that batter in Moeen, especially when he creamed an unbeaten Test century against Sri Lanka in just his second Test.

Hence, all signs point towards Moeen being a behemoth of the English Test outfit. Not just because of his talent, but also because how he somehow morphed into the answer for every question England have faced in recent times.

In fact, a perfect portrayal of that trait would be how the Three Lions brought Moeen in from the red-ball cold storage and thrust him into the deep end against India in the summer. Surely nothing could go wrong for such a player, right?

Yet, with Moeen seemingly on the verge of announcing his retirement from the longest format, people would be forgiven for harboring a sinking feeling of what could’ve been. Moeen could’ve been a lot of things for England, both with the bat and the ball.

Now, though, as his Test career winds down, one can’t help but wonder if he has indeed fulfilled his potential. Or, in blunter terms, if he was ever the solution to the quandaries England faced in the 2010s.

To say that Moeen was unsuitable for Test cricket is perhaps exaggerated, considering that he managed to cast himself as one of the world’s premier all-rounders, especially when at the peak of his powers.

While much of his recent red-ball fortunes have made for relatively grim reading, it is quite revealing that he reached the milestone of 2000 runs and 100 wickets quite quickly. So much so that he beat Imran Khan, Sir Garfield Sobers and of course, Sir Ian Botham to that particular punch. Fairly impressive, eh?

Apart from that, there were also patches where Moeen embodied the all-rounder England would’ve created had they been given that fantasy option. He was picking wickets (crucial ones at that too), scoring runs at a brisk pace and always seemed adept enough to take the game away from the opposition.

Moeen Ali's bowling has perhaps been a little underrated

Back in 2014, when India toured the United Kingdom, Moeen was the headache the Men In Blue didn’t even contemplate they had to deal with. He eventually ended the series as the second-highest wicket-taker, only behind James Anderson.

When his numbers from that rubber are pitted against the others, it illustrates just how brilliant Moeen was. For all bowlers to have taken more than 10 wickets in that summer, no bowler not named Anderson had a better average than Moeen. Strike-rate wise, the all-rounder was better than even Anderson.

Moeen has been exceptional with the ball but in patches

A few years later, in 2017, the off-spinner enjoyed a remarkable run against South Africa, where he accounted for 25 batters across just four Tests. Back then, the ball swerved out of Moeen’s hands, went away from the batter’s eye-line just enough to ensure that he posed challenges to both edges.

In 2018, though, was when Moeen’s bowling reached its crescendo. On a Southampton surface that had shown significant signs of wear and tear, the all-rounder out-bowled Ravichandran Ashwin and propelled England to a series-winning victory. Ashwin, by the way, had largely been recognized as the best finger-spinner in the sport.

Unfortunately for Moeen, that proved to be the glorious aberration in a bowling career that promised a lot more. That game at Southampton was followed by a decent wicket-taking run. Yet, when Moeen failed to live up to expectations at Birmingham in the 1st Test of the 2019 Ashes, he was shown the door. At the time, Moeen had scalped more wickets than any other bowler over the past 12 months.

The away series against India in 2021 also exposed a few bowling shortcomings, for he couldn’t really carry the weight of expectations. In the only game he bowled, he did pick up 8 wickets but those weren’t as frugal as England would’ve wanted, meaning that he, owing to the rest and rotation policy too, failed to play another Test in the winter.

However, he still ended up as England's third-most successful spinner in Test cricket, in terms of wickets and finished with a career strike rate better than that of Jim Laker.

On the batting front, though, is where more of the frustration might lie because, well, Moeen just looks so good and so equipped to be a specialist batter, let alone someone who can chip in with runs in the lower order.

It is quite easy to forget that the left-handed batter notched up four Test centuries in 2016 and that he announced himself on the international red-ball stage almost instantly. However, that particular fading has been made possible due to his proclivity to glide over the highest cloud when on song but crash down to earth when not at his best.

And, as things stand, his ugly swipe across the line at The Oval – a dismissal that raised plenty of furrowed brows then and might continue to do so as long as England harbor the demons of another shattering defeat, will continue personifying the final stretch of his Test career.

Moeen Ali perished to an ugly swipe in what seems to be his penultimate Test innings

That, though, doesn’t take anything away from the cricketer, who unlike many others, genuinely had the ability to break open one’s jaw with remarkable awe. But, of course, also had the ability to induce the odd shrugged shoulder or a general sense of frustration because, well, there was still so much left in the tank.

Moreover, there is a sense that England might not have optimized Moeen’s attributes in the Test format. At times, he was panned by the selectors, who even hinted that he didn’t qualify as what England would deem a first-choice spinner. On other occasions, he was a victim of the constant chopping and changing as England sought to establish a batting unit a touch sturdier than ceramic.

Additionally, Moeen seems a cricketer who performs excellently when left alone and not when backed into a corner. He seems to fall short when the burden is amped up but also always seems to find ways to make people wonder if they are watching the best all-rounder in the world.

Thus, with the announcement of his Test retirement in the pipeline, one can’t escape the fact that Moeen’s Test career reeks of unfulfilled potential. He could’ve been the successor to Swann or he could’ve taken over the mantle from Bell and Pietersen. He could’ve done both too.

Now, though, it seems that Moeen’s career will be defined by what he accomplishes in white-ball cricket – an arena where he still competes to be one of the world’s best at what he does and more importantly, an arena where he seems to have found a sense of belonging.

In life, some stories are meant to be and some aren’t. And, unless something dramatic happens, Moeen’s Test story will always fall in the latter category.