Moeen Ali says each of England’s three spinners are capable of spearheading the attack when their Test series against Sri Lanka gets underway.
The 31-year-old, who is the most experienced slow bowler in the England squad, picked up two wickets on the opening day of their first warm-up match against the Sri Lanka Board XI in Colombo.
However, the Worcestershire all-rounder feels both leg-spinner Adil Rashid and left-armer Jack Leach – who was surprisingly left out of the 14-man line-up – can take on that lead role if required.
“I’m confident and I think there’s three of us who can lead the attack,” Moeen told Sky Sports.
“I’ve played more than the other guys but if Leachy plays and Rash and myself play, we’re all number one spinners in county cricket and we have to take that leadership role a little bit every time we bowl.
“But we’re going to talk a lot among ourselves and we’ll know the right places to bowl on these wickets.”
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Ali (2-64) produced a tidy display with the ball as the Board XI posted 392-9, while Rashid struggled for control and accuracy and finished the day with figures of 1-82.
Overall, Ali admitted he had expected more turn from the wicket, with four of the Sri Lankan batsmen making half-centuries – three of them retiring rather than being dismissed.
“It was a good batting wicket – there wasn’t a lot of spin,” said Ali. “Hopefully the wickets are a bit different in the Test matches. I hope they spin a lot more for everybody.
“This was quite slow, a dead sort of pitch. If you look at the previous Test matches here they’ve all been spinning big and probably not as flat as this wicket.
“It’s not a concern – they scored a bit more than we would like but the guys needed to get overs in their legs.”
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