Moeen Ali proud to lead England in Pakistan as T20 World Cup looms | Andy Bull

Moeen Ali was waiting for this tour. He had dreamed of it since he felt he had earned his place in the England team. But he never imagined he would be captain when it finally happened. “It’s a big honour, no matter who it’s against,” Moeen said, “but to do it in Pakistan when the team comes back here, it’s amazing for me personally, especially when I have family who migrated from here at the time.”

Her grandfather left Kashmir for England after World War II and her mother was born here. He spent time playing here as a child and more recently in the Pakistan Super League.

“I’m someone who wants to play cricket in every country,” Moeen says, “and in Pakistan in particular, after so long.” It’s been 17 years since England have been here. His decision to play in the PSL in 2020 was, he says, because he wanted to help play his part in “putting Pakistani cricket back on the map”. He sees this tour as an extension of that. “I wanted to be part of that. It’s a big thing when England come to Pakistan, more than any other country, England is the one Pakistani fans really love to see come here.

His phone hasn’t stopped ringing since he arrived. He has an uncle who lives here and lots of friends too. “I’ve gotten so many messages” – most of them asking if he can help find tickets – “that it’s a bit of a killer for me.” But he’s happy to have the distraction. He is obviously frustrated with the tight security of the tour and the way he and the team are isolated from the city of Karachi. He brought his wife and children when he played in the PSL and they spent time visiting friends and going to cafes. Between practices this week, he’s been stuck in the team room, reading, chatting, playing cards.

He says the restrictions will shape his decision whether or not to make himself available for Test matches here in December. He had seemed enthusiastic when Brendon McCullum floated the idea of ​​picking him earlier this summer, but he seems to have backed off from that. “I’m not sure yet,” he said. “I want to see how it goes. I don’t like being stuck in a hotel for so long, so I’ll see how I handle that too.

It was frustrating for him that England pulled out of his planned tour here last year, but he’s phlegmatic about it now. “Obviously there was still a bit of Covid at the time so you don’t know what the restrictions might have been. At least now everyone can come. I firmly believe that when things are not easy, if you have a little patience, they become easy. This idea seems to be in his mind. It comes up when he talks about the state of the squad ahead of the T20 World Cup next month.

“It’s not my style to be desperate for something,” Moeen says. “It’s important not to put pressure on yourself and say, ‘We’re going to win a World Cup.’ We have been such a good team for the past two or three years but we have also missed something which is due to the weight of expectation I think we have to focus on one game let’s play our best cricket and don’t worry about the end result. It will take care of itself. The World Cup in 2019 was different. We were favorites, but I don’t think we are favorites now. I think we are one of the best teams, not the favourites.

England brought a strange team here. He was chosen with one eye on the World Cup and the other on bringing in new players for the years to come. It includes four players – Jos Buttler, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood and Reece Topley – who will miss the opener on Tuesday because they are getting back into shape in time for the World Cup, and six others – Will Jacks, Tom Helm , Jordan Cox, Luke Wood, Ben Duckett and Olly Stone – who were not selected for the tournament. All of this uncertainty means Moeen has taken on a different role. It’s Buttler’s team but it’s clear, listening to Moeen here, that he’s leading too, and not just in the draw.

He has strong feelings about what went wrong this summer, when the team lost series against South Africa and India. “This summer has been quite poor for us. We didn’t play very well at all. He says they spent too much time talking about how they did things when Eoin Morgan was captain. “’We used to do this’, ‘We used to do that’ or ‘The reason we were so good was this’. We need to move on now. It’s not easy for Jos to come in and take over from Eoin, but it’s on Jos’ side now. I think that’s going to be the starting point. You’re going to see a real change in the way the team approaches things.

They will still want to be “brave and aggressive, like we always have been”, but “it also needs more method”, he says. “This summer we were going out and trying to be really aggressive and we were getting knocked out.” It is more difficult for less experienced players. “They’ve seen the way we’ve played for the last four or five years and they think they need to come in and go bang, bang, bang with the bat. But in fact, it doesn’t have to be that. We have to find that right balance. »

Pakistan are in a similar position, with Shaheen Shah Afridi and Fakhar Zaman injured and three first-timers in this format in their squad, including Shan Masood, who has done so many runs for Derbyshire this summer. “Both teams are probably on the same level at the moment. We are missing players, we are missing a few, they also have a bit of a transition even though they are playing well, I expect a really tough series, a tight streak. And an exciting streak. It’s the nature of T20 that games come and go, but he, at least, will surely remember these seven long after they’re over.