I’m a bit confused. England’s go-to spinner Jack Leach suffers a stress fracture and pulls out of the Ashes and they replace him with someone who retired from Tests two years ago and has not played a single red-ball game since. And I thought England were trying win back respect for Test cricket.

Moeen Ali is a fine all-round cricketer who’s had his moments for England in all formats. Setting aside the point of whether he’d have made himself available had there been a T20 league in East Timor, as there surely will be in the near future, just what are England trying to achieve here and is Mo...