Moeen Ali set to play in Second Ashes Test despite missing practice with cut finger

England fear Moeen Ali may not be fully fit for the Second Test, after he chose not to bowl in Thursday's practice session here.

Moeen cut his spinning finger in the First Test in Brisbane, which Australia won by 10 wickets to take a 1-0 lead in the series, and struggled to find his rhythm for much of the game.

Moeen is expected to bowl in the nets on Friday and it would be a huge surprise if he were not in the XI, especially given his importance as a batsman. Whether he is 100 per cent, though, is another matter entirely.

The 30-year-old all-rounder had the cut glued together to allow him to bowl at the Gabba, but his off-spin was largely ineffective. Yet Moeen is England’s sole senior spinner — his understudy, leg-spinner Mason Crane, has yet to play a Test — and he has five Test hundreds. Moeen has been promoted to bat at No6 in the absence of Ben Stokes and looked impressive at the Gabba, although he failed to reach 50 in either innings.

At his best, Moeen is a fine attacking spinner, with four five-wicket hauls and a Test best of 10 for 112. If his injury stops him generating enough revolutions on the ball, though, he becomes far less dangerous.

Moeen’s health is a headache for captain Joe Root, who also hopes his predecessor Alastair Cook will regain top form quickly.

Cook had extra net sessions on both Wednesday and Thursday, completing an hour-long stint before main practice began in the afternoon, ahead of the Test, which starts in the early hours of Saturday. The former captain remains one of the team’s prize wickets, but he has only one century in his past 23 innings, and three fifties in that period. There was some relief for Cook, however, as he registered a hole-in-one when the squad played golf yesterday.

Cook and Root are by far the most experienced of the top order and they need to score heavily if England are to fight their way back into the series. Australia sense a weakness in Root as he was dismissed twice lbw in identical fashion at the Gabba — a technical glitch he has been working hard to correct.

England are encouraged that the Adelaide weather is likely to be considerably cooler this weekend — with a high of 19C — than at the moment. With conditions more ‘English’, they hope to extract more swing from the pink Kookaburra ball, especially with the floodlights on.