Eighteen months since playing his last Test, Moeen Ali feels he has so much more to achieve, including passing the 200-wicket milestone.
Back in Chennai, where he scored the last of his five Test centuries with 146 in England’s innings defeat as India won their series 4-0 in 2016, Moeen said that a sense of unfinished business with the red ball was now a driving force.
“That is my biggest motivation really,” said Moeen, who has 181 Test wickets. “I still feel I’ve got wickets and runs in me and match-winning performances within me. I have little targets I want to achieve first. I am not too far away from getting 200 wickets. I know people say they don’t look at these things but it would be something I would look at. Then I would set another target after that.”
So much has happened since Moeen was dropped after one Test in the 2019 Ashes. Some of it he would have imagined when it sparked his decision to take an extended break from the long-form game, some of it he never would have…