But he could not have chosen a better time than during the presentation for his harsh words against the West Indies Cricket Board. Not necessarily with the bat – his cameos in this tournament have been too fleeting to know whether or not that is the case. Moeen’s strike rate with the ball is 20, which is excellent, and makes up for his poor economy. He averages 14.3 with a moderate strike-rate of 117 and it is ludicrous that he bats two places above David Willey, who has a 40-ball T20 hundred to his name. A duck every three matches is woefully unacceptable for a top-seven batsman. In 15 Twenty20 international innings to date, Moeen has departed without scoring six times. If that can be excused then his second-ball duck cannot. He was not called upon to turn his arm over even as Marlon Samuels serenely guided his side towards victory. Moeen is, ostensibly, in the England side as an all-rounder, though whether he is a batting or bowling one is anyone’s guess.
Photograph: Bikas Das/AP 3 ) Moeen Ali is out of touch and out of position It was crushing for them to see him undone so easily.įailed again: Eoin Morgan sees Chris Gayle catch him at slip off the bowling of Samuel Badree. In doing so he closed the bat face and the ball clipped the edge on its way to Chris Gayle at slip.Īs impressive as Morgan’s captaincy has been – turning to Joe Root for the second over proved a masterstroke – this was a point when England needed their captain and most experienced player to contribute with runs.
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He did not score a single run off him and the pressure of the veteran’s series of dot balls – in all there were 14 in his four overs bowled on the spin – showed when Morgan misread a googly and tried to work it into the on-side. Morgan faced 10 balls from the leg-spinner, who barely turned a ball. 2 ) Eoin Morgan needs to look beyond the first ballĪfter picking up his second golden duck of the tournament against New Zealand, the England captain half-joked that getting past the first ball of his innings was his one issue. There is no link between the toss of a coin and the ability of a team’s No8 batsman to pepper the stands with a brilliant flurry of match-winning sixes. It would be easy to blame Ben Stokes for throwing it away but in truth the clean hitting all around the wicket from Carlos Brathwaite was a brilliant piece of controlled aggression. But going into the final over of the match, with the chasing side needing 19 from six balls, the odds were in England’s favour.