Ashes 2023: Fingers crossed over Moeen Ali getting ready to play Headingley Test, says Jeetan Patel

London, July 1 England’s spin-bowling coach Jeetan Patel said the side is hopeful of Moeen Ali recovering sufficiently from his finger injury and then playing in the third Ashes Test at Headingley starting from Thursday.

Ali returned to Test cricket after retiring from the format in 2021, due to lead spinner Jack Leach suffering a stress fracture to his back. But Ali suffered an injury to his spinning finger while playing in the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston.

With a big blister on his spinning finger after bowling many overs on the trot in the first innings, Ali couldn’t bowl significant overs in the second innings, which resulted in England losing in a dramatic fashion by two wickets to Australia.

With young leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed called in as a cover for Ali ahead of the ongoing second Test at Lord’s, the veteran spin all-rounder didn’t play in the match as conditions and green pitch demanded more of fast bowlers.

"It's the best I've ever seen him bowl. Fingers crossed that in the next couple of days, he gets to rest it and he gets to Headingley and he's ready to go. It was pretty disgusting at the end of the Test…we've tried to look after it as much as we can. It's looking in really good shape; it's healed really, really well," Patel was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.

Patel, who played international cricket for New Zealand, also attributed Ali's injury to the prouder seam on the red Dukes ball as compared to the white Kookaburra used in limited-overs cricket, as well as a sudden huge increase in his bowling workload, bowling 47 overs at Edgbaston while picking three wickets.

"Mo hasn't bowled 30 overs (in a day) in a while and that was always going to be part of the risk of bringing him in. But we knew that and he knew that - and he still said yes, and we still asked him."

"Is there a way to look after your fingers? Just bowl. It's probably the only way to do it: bowl regularly. He bowls four overs a game so he's probably not used to it and he hasn't bowled with a Dukes for two years," he added.