"Rooty has more of an emotional attachment with the players" - Moeen Ali criticises Alastair Cook during on-air chat
Ace England all-rounder Moeen Ali rated Joe Root as a better captain than former skipper Alastair Cook, leaving the latter a little offended.
Moeen and Cook were on a talk show discussing England's horrendous display in their ongoing Ashes assignment. Despite being under scrutiny, Root received the backing of Moeen Ali, who said that the former has an emotional attachment to the players.
Speaking on BT Sport's coverage of the fourth Ashes Test, Moeen Ali described the differences between Cook's captaincy and that of Root and said:
“Rooty has more of an emotional attachment with the players, he spends more time with the players."
#Ashes Yikes. Moeen Ali pulling absolutely no punches here 😳 #Ashes
https://t.co/kXiddiyXKY
Ali's comments irked former captain Alastair Cook, who replied:
“Are you just criticising my captaincy?”
“I am a little bit, yeah," Ali responded before adding, “They're both very different, I did do better with the bat under Cooky but with the ball, I was better with Rooty."
The banter continued with Alastair Cook reminding the celebrated all-rounder that he was a regular member of the Test side under him. Cook said:
"So you might criticise me but I’ve never dropped you. How many times did Rooty drop you?"
“That’s true but you also batted me from 1 to 9 in my first year of international cricket," replied Ali.
Incidentally, out of the 64 Tests that Moeen Ali has played, most of them came under Alastair Cook. He has played 37 matches under Cook, scoring 1927 runs and picking up 98 wickets.
"Rooty is a bit more an ‘arm over the shoulder’ kind of guy” - Moeen Ali
Taking the argument further, Alastair Cook explained his point, saying that he was giving Ali a chance since he was not sure about the player's batting position. Cook explained:
“I was giving you a chance, I couldn’t work whether you were a tail-ender or an opening batsman so I just to find the perfect role."
Moeen Ali responded by stressing that Joe Root was a little bit more involved with the players. He said:
“Just to go back to my point, Rooty was a little bit more involved with the players, in my opinion. Not that Cooky doesn’t care but I think Rooty is a bit more of an ‘arm over the shoulder’ kind of guy."
Moeen Ali announced his retirement from the longest format of the game last year. Making his Test debut in 2014, the all-rounder scored 2914 runs at 28.29 and took 195 wickets at 36.66.