Good Afternoon. I believe we've met. I'm Moeen.
One of the many reasons Moeen Ali’s dramatic call-up attracted such attention is that dramatic call-ups are not really such a thing for England these days. Bazball, for all its loosely tethered insanity, has actually resulted in considerable stability for the team. Since McCullum took over as coach, seven players have played in at least 11 of his 14 matches with four players featuring in all, even if one of those operates as both an inconsistent Rolls Royce and, fairly or not, a consistent online punchline. In the previous 14 games, only Root was ever-present and no one else played more than nine.
So for all the dramatic output there’s often an underlying economy of resources with the current side. Even when asking Moeen to join the squad, Stokes showed the same frugality with words he displayed with overs today. Why use 100 overs to bat when 78 will do? Why have a heartfelt chat when just texting “Ashes?” suffices? Moeen knows how it works. After an initial, surprised “Lol” he, to paraphrase Shubman Gill, gave the matter a very quick bit of 🔎🔎 and concluded it wouldn’t be a complete 🤦🏽♂️. That’s so shit but I’ve kept it in because there are no bad sentences about Bazball.
Mike Denness’s plea down the phone to ask Colin Cowdrey to come out to join England’s blood-spattered, bone-strewn Ashes tour of 1974-75 probably wasn’t quite as linguistically economical but was similarly successful. Cowdrey, first man to play a hundred Tests and his country’s captain on 27 occasions, arrived in Perth to face Lillee and Thomson on a pitch so perilous the tourists had to literally pick pieces of themselves up out of it, most famously strands of David Lloyd’s scrotum.
The Kent stalwart greeted Thomson, snarling at the top of his mark, with a charming, if possibly slightly apocryphal, “Good afternoon. I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Cowdrey.” The response, both literal and leather-based, wasn’t as amicable but the batsman remained ebullient if bruised for the five brutal Tests he played. King Charles I asked to wear a thick top so he wouldn’t be seen shaking on the gallows ahead of his late-January execution lest people mistake it for fear. Cowdrey also called for sartorial reinforcements, little bits of rubber he stuck to his torso to absorb the numerous blows he knew were coming. He allowed himself a few rubs when they landed but also refused to let his oppressors, albeit bowlers rather than actual beheaders, see any dread.
Today King Mo approached the middle having recently spent two months playing T20 in the company of MS Dhoni. It’s possible there’s no better preparation for the uncluttered, attacking mindset required for Bazball. There was, as the Hollies became ever more bibulous, hostelry in the air rather than hostility. His home town pitch was snoozy not snorting. Despite all the above Moeen was still required to face Australia with their tails up after his two years away from Test cricket. He started with almost too much circumspection, nearly giving Cummins a return catch before remembering the team ethos he’d been brought back into and smearing Lyon over mid-on.
The second and fourth balls of Cummins’s next over went for boundaries, the first a scythe for four, the second a sort of hopswivelpull over midwicket. It wasn’t the most elegant assault but as the crowd bayed in a Chepauk frenzy it briefly felt as if Cummins should be re-awarded the $1.3m he forfeited for withdrawing from this year’s IPL. Root was giggling at it all. It’s very hard to know what the England players say to each other when they fist bump in the middle these days. Telling your partner “it’s turning a bit off a length” or “he’s getting a bit of tail” could be considered a bit of a vibe killer. I think Root has settled on largely just giggling and saying “Shot”. Classy, joyful, effective as befits him.
Cummins to his credit stayed calm, smiling his marshmallow smile as he had when Crawley creamed him through cover first ball of the day. Assaults are just par for the course against current England and Cummins knows getting drawn into a brawny, cricketing rutfest is is exactly what Stokes want. Australia have to wait for England to punch themselves out not punch back in a frenzy, however confusing it is for David Warner to see Moeen’s beard in close proximity to Root in Birmingham. Today, when the visitors often sheepishly had two sweepers out, it was hard not to think of Justin Langer suggesting there may be “cowards” in the ranks after he was forced out as coach. In truth, though, it might have felt a little unAustralian but against England’s constant slashing and clipping it wasn’t completely unelite thinking.
Moeen soon waltzed a furlong towards to Lyon and Carey completed the stumping, his second of the day. The Australian keeper, despite dropping a very plausible chance earlier, had remained equally cool, as befits a man known for falling in swimming pools. It’s worth recalling that before Bazball there was Maxwellball and in the midst of one of its most famous triumphs, the Old Trafford ODI heist of 2020, the fellow centurion at the other end was Carey. In the narrative of England’s sauna strategies versus Australia’s ice bath mentality, Carey’s balls, as steely as Lloyd’s were splintered, will be pivotal across the next six weeks.
Good afternoon. It’s the Ashes. And it’s going to be phenomenal.