India vs England 2021: Nasser Hussain Defends Moeen Ali For His Decision To Leave The Ongoing India Tour

Former England captain, Nasser Hussain has come out in support of Moeen Ali as the all-rounder is receiving a lot of flak from a section of fans and experts to return back to England after the second Test and opting out of the last two Tests against India.

Joe Root, after England’s 317 runs loss in Chennai, confirmed that Moeen Ali has ‘chosen’ to not participate further in the Test series and return back to his family. Ali, since then has been criticized to put playing Test cricket for England as less priority; the 33-year-old will return to India to play in the T20I series, and perhaps the IPL as well as he is likely to be bought in the auction.

Nassr Hussain points out that apart from Ali, other players – Jonny Bairstow, Jofra Archer, Mark Wood, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler – have also missed some part of their Test tour to Asia as they have been rested owing to the bio-bubble fatigue. But, questions are being raised over only Moeen Ali, especially after Root’s usage of the word ‘chosen’, for which he had corrected and reportedly apologized to Ali.

“We must respect the choice Moeen Ali made to leave England’s Test tour of India even though he is only just back into the side following an absence of 18 months.

“My concern is that people think it’s fine for Jos, Jonny, Mark Wood, and Sam Curran to be missing currently but unfairly dress up the situation for Moeen differently because of the circumstances.

“Somehow assume that the decision to rest those four had been taken out of their hands, and yet conclude that this was solely the player’s call,” Nasser Hussain wrote in his column for the Daily Mail.

Moeen Ali is been hung out to dry: Nasser Hussain

Nasser Hussain reckons Moeen Ali is been made the scapegoat of their loss and is receiving unwarranted criticism – after all he was England’s best player in the second Chennai Test. The 52-year-old opines that in the covid times, where players spend months in the bio-bubble, they should be liberated whenever they demand without questions.

“Mo is someone who always cops a lot of flak, which is totally unjust. He’s a bloomin’ good bloke who has given a lot to English cricket. Someone who will do anything for you… I don’t like someone being hung out to dry through an interpretation that he took a certain choice. They all made the same one.

“It’s just the timing of Moeen’s that will be considered less than ideal. That’s not his fault. Yes, in India you ideally want consistency of selection with your spin bowlers, I get that, but if a player says he needs to be out of the bubble, then that’s the end of the conversation,” the former skipper further added.

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