Sportblog | The Guardian — Moeen Ali RSS

Nov 09, 2016

Fortune helps England gain first Test foothold but Kohli’s India can fire back | Ali Martin

The tourists ended day one in the ascendancy thanks to Joe Root and Moeen Ali but the No1-ranked Test side are far from beatenAfter suffering a first defeat by Bangladesh and the horror show of a 10-wicket collapse inside a session that brought it about England went into the first day of their five-Test series with India as a team who could ill-afford any more dents to their confidence in the opening exchanges. With no warm-up games scheduled – a mistake unlikely to be repeated – only net practice and team talks came before the most daunting of away series. They needed a few things to go their way in Rajkot to establish an early foothold. Related: Joe Root and...

Nov 01, 2016

England confusion over spin stretches back to Salisbury’s forgotten code | Andy Bull

With their bewildering array of spin options in Bangladesh, it seems Alastair Cook’s side do not know what they want. Little has changed from a fiasco in 1992Ian Salisbury tells a good tale about his Test debut. It was in the summer of 1992, and England were playing Pakistan at Lord’s. Salisbury was the first leg‑spinner England had picked in a generation, since Robin Hobbs in 1971. And he was treated, Hobbs said at the time, “like something that had dropped from the moon”. In the days before the Test, it became obvious that England’s wicketkeeper, Jack Russell, could not pick Salisbury’s bowling. So Russell and the coaches came up with a cunning plan. They told Salisbury he should communicate...

1 2 3