The mystery of Moeen Ali

Indian cricket has always been plagued by the criticism of being tigers at home and whimper like cats in overseas conditions. This has been the story from times immemorial. The main reason for this is often given to be the seaming tracks with lot of bounce that the pitches outside the subcontinent provide. As a result, the Indian batsmen who are brought up on the slow turners find it hard to cope up with such a situation.

But the current English tour has changed this perception. Before you get me wrong, there has been no dramatic improvement in Indian batsmen’s ability to handle fast bowling, its just that for a change, they are even struggling against an orthodox spinner, on top of that someone who was considered as a “part-timer”.

Moeen Ali has been nothing short of a revelation for England in this series. He was picked in the side primarily as a batsmen and had proven his mettle with a gutsy century against Sri Lanka in the last test of the series. But no one had probably imagined that he also had the knack of bowling innocuous off break and no one in their wildest teams would have bet that he would torment India with his bowling, of all the teams.

So, what exactly is it about Moeen Ali that has led to Indian batsmen falling like nine pins in one innings after another. I don’t think it would be fair to compare him with legends like Warne, Kumble and Murali, so I am not even going there. But there must be something about him that has made everyone sit up and take notice.

Moeen Ali can at best be described as a tweaker who looks to pitch the ball in the right areas without looking to do anything flashy or out of the box. He knows his limitations and probably this is his biggest strength. He has also worked on the weakness of the batsmen and the fact that he himself is a batsmen, has helped him to understand the psyche of his opponent.

Apart from the dismal performance of its batsmen, what should be more worrisome for India is the fact that Moeen Ali has outperformed even the Indian spinners at the art of which they are considered as masters. R. Ashwin, who was India’s test player of the year in 2013, could not manage to be in the playing eleven, whereas Ravindra Jadeja has hardly looked like taking a wicket in this series.

On the other hand, Moeen Ali has been probing the Indian batsmen, asking them uncomfortable questions so as to give them no respite once the fast bowlers are through with their early burst. He has got wickets of top order quality batsmen consistently and has bamboozled them by relying on his accuracy and persistence of line and length, a rare quality to find in bowlers these days.

Although it would be true early to say if Moeen Ali has filled the shoes of Graeme Swann, but he has definitely begun well on that path.