Having bowled a superb spell on Day 2 and help England run through India's middle to lower order in the first innings, Moeen Ali is hoping that it leads to a fresh start to his Test career for his country.
Moeen just bowled classical off-spinners and got a decisive spell of 5/63.
It definitely helps when nobody rates you highly and you aren't as dynamic and enterprising as some of the others are. It pushes you towards working as hard as possible and just do simple things right.
Moeen saw rough outside the off-stump at Southampton and just kept spinning the ball in and drifting a few away, the Indian batsmen, not for the first time, tried to hit him out of the attack and lost wickets in the process.
After helping England negate the possibility of India taking a huge first innings lead, Moeen was quoted saying, “The role in the side now is my best role – mainly as a batter, then coming on as a second spinner gives me a lot more confidence and freedom, and I actually end up playing better. I’m trying to have a fresh start.”
Moeen has actually made a stellar comeback after a disappointing winter in Australia and New Zealand and he thinks, that the time away from the game has helped him recover mentally.
“It’s believing you’re not a bad player after one bad winter. Many players have gone through that, and for me it was just moving on, making you a better player, a stronger character." said Moeen and added, "These things can happen to anybody. I shrugged it off, cleared my mind to try to get better, and that’s exactly what I feel I have been doing.”
“I’ve loved being back at Worcester. It’s always nice to get a call-up when you’re in decent nick … you have that confidence coming into the game, and it’s doing what county cricket should be doing.”
Looking at the match situation currently, Moeen said, “I hope we can get a decent total, which is going to be quite difficult against their bowlers. I think they’re bowling really well at the moment, We’re going to have to fight hard to win this series here, but I hope we can do that."
“I think Ravi(Ashwin) is going to be hard work for us this innings, but I’m sure we’ve got the quality in the side that can deal with it.”
(Inputs from Press Association)
