Birmingham [UK], June 20 : Australia's star spinner Nathan Lyon sympathised with Moeen Ali's finger injury after the all-rounder was fined 25 per cent of the match fee for spraying a substance on his bowling hand.
The opening Test of the Ashes hangs in the balance as Australia closed on 107/3, still 174 behind with one day's play remaining.
The Aussie spinner compared Moeen Ali's woes to a lead singer losing his vocals, but having to perform at a concert.
Moeen bowled 33 overs in the first innings despite having difficulty with his finger. In addition to being penalised 25 per cent of his match fee for placing a foreign substance on his finger without the umpires' permission, he took two wickets but went for 147 runs.
Due to the injury to head spinner Jack Leach, Moeen, who retired from Test cricket in 2021, was asked to play in the Ashes.
"Sitting here I have a lot of sympathy for Mo [Moeen Ali], not coming off any red-ball cricket for two years and thrown into bowling a lot of overs," Nathan Lyon was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
"The best way I can probably sum it up, and it will probably sound weird, is a singer losing the vocals but expecting to go out and put a concert on. It is extremely tough to grip the ball as finger spinners, especially as offies, we put our fingers on the seam and try to spin up the back of the ball, that's where we get spin, drop and drift. So [there's] a lot of sympathy for him, I've been there before, it is quite painful," he added.
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