Moeen Ali calls for red-ball focus after Ashes humbling

The allrounder, who retired from Test cricket earlier this year, used England's limited-over revolution as an example of where the first-class game can return to

Moeen Ali has called for a similar focus on improving England's red-ball cricket to the limited-over revolution that led to the country's World Cup victory in 2019.

The catalyst for that movement was the 2015 tournament, when an abject display in Australia led to a major shift in priorities and saw the building blocks laid for a period of sustained success in the game's shorter formats.

Speaking as part of BT Sport's coverage of the Ashes, the allrounder – who only retired from Test cricket three months ago and made his final appearance against India in September – called for changes in English cricket's first-class game.

"It has obviously worked because we won the World Cup and we've done really well in white-ball cricket," he said. "It has worked. I just feel that now the white-ball cricket is so set and strong – the foundations are there, the players are there, we know what we're doing, Eoin Morgan leads that amazingly well – I think we need that in red-ball cricket now as well."

He admitted that a result like this – Australia retained the Ashes on just the 12th day of the series – "has been coming". Thirteen times this year in Tests, England have failed to reach 200, while Ollie Robinson's duck – the fourth of a second innings that lasted just 27.4 overs – was the team's 54th of 2021, a Test record they now jointly hold.

England became the world no.1⃣ ODI side after their early knockout in the 2015 World Cup.

Can they rebuild or start afresh with the Test team? 🤔@Trotty, Moeen Ali and @Harmy611 say that the ECB need to prioritise first-class cricket now#Ashes pic.twitter.com/TsOfeLNS1F

— Cricket on BT Sport (@btsportcricket) December 28, 2021

"I don't think we've been good enough," said Moeen. "I think it has been coming, actually. I've been part of this team. It's not long ago that I was in that side. You just felt that sometimes we were papering over the cracks at home, where it does do a bit and we're kind of used to those conditions.

"When we go away, it's always difficult and if Joe Root doesn't score, we actually really struggle to even score 200 or anything competitive.

"As an individual, I sensed that. I've been playing for England for a while, but when we had (Alastair) Cook and Rooty obviously you kind of get away with it a bit more because they're world-class players.

"I feel you need that experience in Test cricket and you need the techniques, and you need the hard work in particular. I'm not saying we don’t work hard, but I'm not sure we work on the right things a lot of the time. I feel we can be a bit more shrewd and actually go to the ex-players and the guys who've been there and done that and use their experience as much as we can."

He pointed to the limitations of the domestic game in its current guise when it comes to preparing players for international cricket, suggesting that adopting the Kookaburra ball in county cricket for a period – like Australia did with the Dukes ball in the Sheffield Shield – might help to better ready young cricketers for the challenge.

^{Moeen Ali retired from Test cricket at the end of the summer (Ian Kington/AFP via Getty Images)}

Moeen, who picked up 195 Test wickets and made five centuries, added: "I would actually reduce the games in Championship cricket, but I'd play them at the right time when the wickets are good, the sun is out. I think it will make a big difference.

"We go back to when we play first-class cricket: the wickets are very difficult for batters. I think the bowling you face is very different to what you face in international cricket.

"It's going to take time, and I think the next two years in particular we should be looking to the future a bit more and which guys we can invest a bit more time in, so that in a couple of years' time these guys are really ready and good."

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