After 7 years of service, Moeen Ali retires from Test cricket

England all-rounder Moeen Ali has retired from Test cricket on Monday, September 27, the England Cricket Board has announced. He informed his decision to the England team management led by the captain Joe Root and coach Silverwood.

Moeen has been in and out of the England Test team over the last few years based on the team’s requirements. He has been in high regard of the team management and it was established when he was appointed vice-captain of the side for the fourth Test of the series against India when Jos Buttler had pulled out of the game.

Moeen was in contention to travel to Australia for the Ashes series scheduled at the end of the year as well but stringent quarantine and Covid-19 protocols which have worried almost all England players may well have prompted him to take the decision.

He has been a top-notch performer in the shorter versions of the game for the sides he has played in the recent past and there lies the priority of the all-rounder who some say underachieved as an international cricketer. 

Moeen has played 64 Test matches for England and has amassed 2,914 runs at a middling average of 28.29 that put the tag of an underachiever in perspective. He has been one of the pleasant stroke maker in the game but could not quite light up the fire in the longest format and a lot of those failures were brought upon by himself rather than bowlers putting him off his mark.

He has also taken 195 wickets which is a lot for an English spinner but an average of 36.66 for a spinner who has produced some unplayable balls in his career is another evidence of him not doing justice to his potential.

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IPL 2021 | RCB vs MI: Hits and Flops as Harshal Patel, Glenn Maxwell hand crushing blow to Mumbai

Mumbai Indians were handed the biggest defeat in the last five years on Sunday night (September 26) by the Royal Challengers Bangalore as they were bundled out for 111 in pursuit of 166. Harshal Patel was the wrecker in chief for RCB with his hattrick and a four-wicket haul as the Mumbai team were all out in 18.1 overs. With both teams having lost their initial two matches in the UAE leg of the competition, it was important for them to get back to winning ways and it was the team from Bangalore that did. Courtesy of that win, they have now strengthened their chances of making it to the Playoffs as they now have 12 points from 10 games and sit comfortably in the third position in the points table. Mumbai on the other hand are in the mix now and stand second from the bottom even though they have an equal number of points as fourth-placed Kolkata Knight Riders. Every game travels around players who were Hits and those who Flopped. This section of the match analysis is all about delving into the detailed performances of those players. Hits Glenn Maxwell It seemed that September 27 was the day of all-rounders in IPL 2021 as just after the herpes of Ravindra Jadeja in the first match of the day between CSK and KKR at Abu Dhabi, the Big Show decided to put on a show at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium with both the bat in hand and the ball. Maxwell, who was due big runs after a disappointing start to the UAE leg for both his team and himself, got going right from the word go. In the first innings, he paired up with the skipper Virat Kohli and put on 51 runs for the third wicket. With the help of his reverse sweeps and switch hits, some of which sailed over the boundary more than once, the Australian scored 56 off just 37 balls. Striking at 151 and hitting six fours and three sixes. With the ball, he was equally prudent, picking key wickets of Mumbai skipper Rohit Sharma and Krunal Pandya, and most importantly, giving away only 23 runs and keeping the nozzle tight in the middle overs, thereby building pressure on the MI batters. Harshal Patel Purple Patel, the Gujju grenade and whatnot, the ability to pick wickets at all moments have made Harshal Patel the talk of the town in this IPL. And few previous occasions in India, he might have missed the hattrick, but he wasn’t going to do it this time around. Bowling in the pressure situation with two of Mumbai’s most dangerous batsmen at the crease in Hardik Pandya and Kieron Pollard, Patel faced a situation that was like make or break for him. 61 runs were needed off the last four overs and Panday and Pollard had just about got their eye in. It could have been a big 20-25 run over and the game might have turned on its head. No one would have ever imagined that the over would indeed tur the game, but for RCB. Firstly, Harshal trapped Pandya with a slower ball, which he couldn’t connect with well and was caught by Kohli at mid-off. On the very next day, with a field suggesting that he would go for a wide yorker, the Haryana bowler bluffed Pollard and got his leg stump broken with yet another slower one. His last wicket in the hattrick, Rahul Chahar was found plumb in front of the wicket as he was not able to read a salwar yorker. The medium-pacer then came back and cleaned up Adam Milne to end the game and finish with figures of 4-17 in 3.1 overs. With these four wickets, the 30-year-old has now reached 23 wickets in 10 games and is miles ahead of second-placed Avesh Khan, who has 15 wickets from the same number of games. Yuzvendra Chahal The third hit would have been Kohli for his fifty, but what Yuzvendar Chahal did was a total game-changer. With Mumbai going at almost nine runs per over in the powerplay without losing a wicket, the only thing that could have kept RCB in the game and stop the men in blue running away from it was a wicket and Chahal provided exactly that. The leg spinner trapped Quinton de Kock and thus opened the floodgates of Mumbai Indians. After de Kock, the 31-year-old also removed Ishan Kishan as the pressure piled on the Mumbai team. Chahal came back one last time and removed Bumrah to finish with brilliant figures of 3-11 in his quota of four overs. Flops Krunal Pandya The Pandya brothers, much like most of the Mumbai players and the entire team have looked upset about something. While Hardik couldn’t play in the first game, Krunal has underperformed in all three matches. When he was sent to bat ahead of his brother Hardik and Pollard, it was supposed to counter the leg-spin of Chahal, but instead, he was counter-countered by Maxwell with his off-spin. Thus, Pandya, who was supposed to sail the sinking ship to the coast, abandoned it midway, getting out of a meagre five, even after consuming 11 deliveries. With the ball, he wasn’t great either as he could not pick up a wicket, but he surely was economical, giving away only 27 runs in his four overs. Suryakumar Yadav There are many reasons why Mumbai have not been able to perform as per expectations. But if the biggest reason of all is asked, the answer will be Suryakumar Yadav’s batting. The man, who never scored below 400 in his last three seasons at Mumbai, is suddenly finding it difficult to get the bat going. In the 10 innings of this season combined, he has not been able to cross 200 even. His average is dwindling in the late 10s and he has not been able to find the middle of the bat off late. In this innings too, he was caught at fine leg, not trying to reach the ball and hit it, but by chasing a wide delivery by extending his bat to it with the body far far away from the bat. It seemed unreal to even watch it that it was the same Surya who stormed into the Indian side based on his brilliant strike play. Although it was a crushing defeat, Mumbai is known for comebacks. And in their next game, which is against Punjab Kings o the doubleheaders day, Tuesday, September 28, the men in blue look to make yet another remarkable comeback. For RCB though, they need to continue their newfound momentum when they meet Rajasthan Royals on September 29.

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IPL 2021 | RCB vs MI: What Experts Said as resurgent RCB expose out of form Mumbai

After coming second in their last game against the Chennai Super Kings, Virat Kohli had asked his players to show more courage in press situations and it appeared that the players arrived pumped up from that mantra in the game against the Mumbai Indians. Kohli walked the talk and took the attack to the opposition bowling attack while the likes of Glenn Maxwell and KS Bharat also followed suit with the best of their explosive abilities. Their bowlers too turned up high on confidence and eagerness to get back to the winning ways after two losses on the trot. Harshal Patel took a sensation hat-trick that included two fearsome batsmen in Kieron Pollard and Hardik Pandya, and along with Yuzvendra Chahal and Glenn Maxwell reduced Mumbai’s lower order contributions as phone numbers on the scoreboard. Here, we’ll dissect what the captains made out of the game and how did their plan of action unfolded along with the ideas of experts on how do they see the development and journey of both sides after the game. Captains’ views At first, the losing captain, Rohit Sharma conceded that his team has not been at their best in their batting department in this season. He lamented his own wicket against the RCB and said that the moment turned out to be a “game-changing” one for his side. He also acknowledged that the lack of consistency from the top order has also not helped their cause in this edition and urged the team to recover quickly from unfavourable situations as they found themselves in against the RCB on Sunday night. However, he commented on the bowling attack for pulling things back in their control after the RCB batting lineup was cruising along and at one time appeared set to go beyond the 180-run mark. "Thought it was a fantastic bowling effort. Looked like they were going to get 180. The batters just let us down. The opening issue has been happening consistently. We have to make sure that the batters carry on. I played a bat shot today and got out; I felt that was the game-changing moment. We need to find ways to bounce back from whatever situations we are in,” Rohit said in the post-match presentation. After having a stellar season last year where he plundered bowler for 30 sixes on the way to more than 500 runs, Ishan Kishan is going through a lean patch this season. His numbers have dried up and subsequently, he has been under pressure to perform to the potential and promise he did after swashbuckling performances last year. However, Rohit came in support of his young player and reiterated that the Mumbai team management will not put him under a lot of pressure and instead they will keep on giving him space and freedom to flourish playing the game in the manner he likes to play with. “Kishan is a talented player, we just need to understand the freedom he needs, and need to provide him with that. He had a terrific IPL last year... We wanted to give him the opportunity. He is relatively young and making his way into international cricket,” Rohit concluded. On the other hand, it was almost a perfect game for a very happy Virat Kohli who would not have asked for any better performance from his men. He started the RCB’s charge in batting by playing aggressive start from the word go and he was quite ecstatic at the manner of RCB’s win over the Mumbai Indians. Kohli scored another half-century and said that Maxwell’s “unbelievable” innings of 56 runs from 37 balls that included sixes on reverse sweeps along with Bharat’s contribution of 32 runs provided RCB with a perfect rhythm in the middle over. "Very happy, especially the way we won. It was a difficult start when we lost Devdutt. He came in the second over to try and get me out... KS came out and played some amazing shots. He took the pressure off me. Maxi's innings was unbelievable,” Kohli said in the post-match presentation. The contest also presented many duels at a personal level with Kohli and Ab de Villiers on one side with the bat and Jasprit Bumrah on the side of the fence with the ball. Rating his Indian teammate very highly, Kohli said that batsmen have to try to “stamp authority” in order to have a chance against him otherwise the pacer will run over them in quick time. “If you don't try and stamp your authority, Bumrah will get over you - that's how good he is. You have to be at you level best,” Kohli addressed the Bumrah challenge. Harshal Patel repeated his heroics with the ball against the Mumbai Indians by picking up a hat0trick after scalping a five-wicket haul in the first round of the game between the sides in the first phase of IPL 201, and Kohli lauded his achievement that helped RCB take an unassailable advantage over the Rohit Sharma-led side. He rated his team’s performance a “perfect ten” but did not shy away from pointing out the areas of improvement. He said they should have got 15 runs more than where they finished but chose to back his players to achieve those goals in the coming games. “I'd give it a perfect ten tonight. We left out 15 [runs] out there... Those are the things where we feel we can get 20-25 extra runs. I went with my gut feel with DC [Christian]... With his experience and change-ups, he bowled an amazing over... What Harshal did was unbelievable,” Kohli concluded. Experts’ views One of the most prominent voices in Indian cricket, Harsha Bhogle highlighted the chinks in the armour of the Mumbai Indians while backing the Royal Challengers to qualify through to the next stage. He also pointed out the fragility in the Mumbai middle order and opined that Kieron Pollard should bat at number five following Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan in the batting order. On the other hand, Yuzvendra Chahal, who picked up two important wickets of Ishan Kishan and Quinton de Kock, received high praise from legendary Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh. However, he was curious to know the pace at which he bowled his deliveries against the Mumbai Indians. He also commended Harshal Patel, who picked up a hat-trick and said that the pacer turned the things around for the RCB. Former Chennai Super Kings batsman Subramaniam Badrinath has made up his mind about the three teams who are certain to advance to the next stage. He picked his former team CSK, Delhi Capitals and RCB as three teams while sharing his anticipation about who could be the fourth side to get to the play-off stage. The RCB took one more step towards qualifying for the playoff phase albeit after losing two back to back games in the second phase of the tournament while the Mumbai Indians have made it really tough for themselves and only repeating their past glory where they came winning games one after another to the top four positions can propel them to the playoff this time around.

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IPL 2021 | I thought he would do something magical: Balaji lavishes praise on improved Jadeja

Ravindra Jadeja won Chennai Super Kings a tough match against Kolkata Knight Riders with the bat and his bowling coach was all praise for the all-rounder. Lakshmipathy Balaji, while speaking in the post-match press conference said that he had all the confidence in the left-handed batter that he would do something magical and win the game. Recalling a moment from last IPL, Balaji said, "I think, this was exactly one year back in Dubai, the second game against KKR, Jaddu (Jadeja) won us the game in the last over.” “I recollected the memory and I thought when Ravi is playing, he would do some kind of magic and he has improved his batting under pressure, so he would win this" Balaji said. Talking about the improvement in Jadeja, who hit 22 off the 19th over when CSK needed to get 26 off two overs, having scored just 18 off the last three overs, Balaji further said, "He is showing that improvement on the field and making sure, helping us to cross the line. It is wonderful to see Ravi coming higher in this batting order, his batting ability has changed overall in the last one or two years.” On the other David Hussey, Assistant coach of KKR backed Prasidh Krishna to come back strong after this drubbing at the hands of Jadeja. "PK (Prasidh Krishna) has been (an) amazing death bowler for us throughout this tournament, in the last two games, so he is definitely in our plans to bowl. Unfortunately, he got beaten by a better player today in Jadeja. I'm sure knowing PK he is going to bounce back and become the world-class bowler that he actually is normally," Hussey said. Although CSK chased down 172 to win the game by two wickets and go top of the table, it got tight in the last over even as only four runs were required as Sunil Narine dismissed Sam Curran and Jadeja and it was Deepak Chahar who hit the last ball for a single to win the game as Sharduk Thakur had three earlier in the third ball of the over.