Moeen Ali hits out for being made England’s scapegoat

England’s Moeen Ali reckons that the critics found it easy to pin-point him for the national team’s poor run of form. The 32-year-old last played Test cricket in the Ashes opener at the Edgbaston in Birmingham where Australia registered a 251-run victory. In that game, the off-spinner picked up three wickets, but had scores of 0 and four in the innings he batted in.

Thereafter, the veteran took a break from Test cricket to prolong his career for the Three Lions. Back in July 2019, Moeen had won the World Cup on home soil. But then the Birmingham-born felt the need to shelve Test cricket for a brief while after feeling ‘burnt out’.

I was doing quite well before that: Moeen Ali

“There have been days I’ve had not so good games but I feel like sometimes it’s easy to point the finger at me. It did get to me and that was probably one of the reasons why I felt like I needed to step back from Test cricket in particular,” Moeen was quoted as saying to the BBC Asian Network.

“It’s not something people would normally do, especially when you’ve just won the World Cup, you’re playing in the Ashes – I was doing quite well before that,” he stated.

Moeen didn’t sound happy for the reason that all the blame was being put on him. In Test cricket, the left-hander mostly bats in the lower middle-order. Moeen feels batting at number eight gave him quite a bit of trouble.

“Obviously I had a very bad game against Australia in the Ashes and then rightfully I got dropped, but it was almost like it was all my fault and like I’ve not been good enough for a while and not done anything for two years – but I have. I bat number eight and if I don’t score runs it’s all my fault? It’s difficult sometimes,” Moeen mentioned.

Moeen is likely to make a comeback in the Brits’ home series against Pakistan and West Indies. He also termed the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) for lending him support. “They’ve just said, ‘Whenever you’re ready, mate. We’ll be here for you’. Hopefully very soon I’ll be back,” he added.

After getting dropped from the national setup, Moeen went to play the T20 Blast for Worcestershire. Then he plied his trade for the Cape Town Blitz in the second edition of the MSL following which he represented Team Abu Dhabi in the T10 League.