With Moeen Ali and Ben Stokes do England now have the best two all-rounders in the world?

Moeen Ali left Lord’s on Sunday evening with the man of the match award and bowling figures of 10 for 112. He was the first English spinner to take 10 in a match since Graeme Swann in 2013. Not bad for a man who still sees himself as a batsman who chips in as a second spinner.

Alongside a selfless attacking 87 in the first innings, putting on 177 with Joe Root as England pulled away on Thursday evening, this was surely Ali’s finest complete performance in an England shirt. It was the performance of a genuine all-rounder: good enough in each discipline of the game to warrant selection in the team.

The updated ICC Rankings, released on Monday morning, underline Ali’s progress. He has now moved up to two places to fourth among all-rounders in Test cricket, leaving Ben Stokes behind in fifth.

Just ahead of them lie Indian pair Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, with first place taken by Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan. But Ali is on his way up and it is fair to ask whether England may soon have the two best Test all-rounders on the world, if they do not already.

Shakib is out on his own and understandably so, inspiring a team with far less resources and infrastructure than England and India. On the second day of the Lord’s Test Ali brought up the all-rounders double of 2000 runs and 100 wickets in only his 38^th Test. But

Shakib did it faster, in just 31.

Ali could though certainly claim to be a more complete all-rounder than Ashwin and Jadeja, as could Stokes. Just look at their figures in Test cricket from 2014 to now. Ashwin has been the best bowler in the world in that time, with 171 wickets at 23.22. Jadeja has an impressive 109 wickets at 23.79. In that sense they are ahead of Ali (108 at 39.35) and Stokes (72 at 33.95).

open image in gallery

But as batsmen the English pair have the edge. From 2014 onwards, Ali has 2036 Test runs (at 35.45) and Stokes has 1759 (at 33.82). They leave behind Ashwin, with 1115 runs at 28.58 and Jadeja, with 946 runs at 31.53. Ali has five Test centuries and Stokes has four. Ashwin has four, although all of them came against the West Indies, while Jadeja has none.

Which might suggest that while Ashwin and Jadeja are excellent spinners, and accomplished in all forms of the game, that in Test cricket they are ultimately bowlers who can bat well, rather than the complete package.

It is the improvement in Ali’s game over the last few years that has pushed him into that category. He showed again at Lord’s that he is a more intelligent, flexible and dangerous bowler than the one who made his Test debut three years ago. He attacked good batsmen and got them out – Dean Elgar twice, Temba Bavuma twice, Hashim Amla once, Quentin De Kock once – bowling with more variation than we have seen before. No wonder he paid tribute to bowling coach Saqlain Mushtaq afterwards.

The beauty of England’s two all-rounders, and six man attack, is that they could bowl South Africa out twice without Stokes having to take a wicket. He did not bowl at all in the second innings. Of course he still contributed, coming in at 76 for four on the first morning and changing the momentum of the game with a punchy 56. Then when South Africa were threatening to get close to England’s first innings score, he got rid of De Kock with a brilliant catch.

open image in gallery

But the evidence of this first Test is that with Stokes and Ali in the team, England have more depth and options than many Test teams could hope. Of course this is still a flawed team, not least at the top of the order. But they bat to seven, if not lower, and still have six good bowlers. Not many Test sides can say that.