England vs India: Moeen Ali takes positives out of England’s defeat in 1st ODI – It is good for us going forward

All-rounder Moeen Ali reckoned that losing matches may turn out to be a blessing in disguise for the England cricket team ahead of the 50-over World Cup next year in India. On Tuesday, July 12, the Three Lions suffered one of their dreadful batting collapses against Rohit Sharma’s India in the 1st ODI at the Kennington Oval in London.

After being reduced to 26 for 5 inside the first 10 overs, the home team failed to recover and were bowled out for 110. Thereafter, India chased the target down at a canter and took a crucial 1-0 lead in the three-match series.

“It’s nice to have these guys back and I’m sure it’ll be fine. The World Cup is still two years away. It definitely takes time to bed in. It will take a few defeats which is fine,” Moeen was quoted as saying.

“In the past, we’ve won a lot of games, got to a World Cup and lost those crucial games. We have lost a few games at the moment but that’s good for us going forward and closer to a World Cup we’ll start winning. We want to win now, but you don’t want to win all games. Sometimes you learn more from losing games,” he stated.

Moeen stated that it’s not always that England lose wickets in heaps early on. He also heaped praise on the Indian bowlers for hitting the right channels in favourable conditions for bowling.

“It’s going to take some time. It’s difficult, we have played a lot more shots [in past matches] and sometimes it was a case of ‘do we keep going?’ But here we were 26 for 5 and that has not happened a lot.

“Normally, when we haven’t played well we’ve been 70 for 5 and you can counter, but the ball was newer, they were bowling well. I thought they bowled really well on a difficult wicket and we managed to nick a few balls,” Moeen added.

Even as Jasprit Bumrah, who won the Player of the Match award, picked up six wickets, Mohammed Shami and Prasidh Krishna got three and one wickets respectively.

The second ODI of the series is scheduled to take place on Thursday, July 14 at the Lord’s Cricket Ground in London.

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