England accused of "papering over the cracks at home" after Ashes humbling

12/28/2021

Moeen Ali has admitted that a result like England 's Ashes humiliation "has been coming".

Australia retained the Ashes on the 12th day of the series, comprehensively beating England by an innings and 14 runs in the third Test in Melbourne to take an unassailable lead in the series.

Moeen was part of England's Test team during the summer, retiring from the format in September after their series against India.

Speaking on BT Sport, the 34-year-old suggested England are guilty of "papering over the cracks at home" and that they have relied too heavily on the runs of Alastair Cook and Joe Root in recent years.

"I don't think we've been good enough," he said. "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."

Moeen also said he was "not sure" that England "work on the right things a lot of the time", adding: "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."

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