Monday 10 July 2017 06:50, UK
Sir Ian Botham hailed 'a magnificent Mo-show' after Moeen Ali's career-best 6-53 span England to a 211-run victory over South Africa, at Lord's, in Joe Root's first match as captain.
Ali followed up his first-innings 4-59 with his first five-for at Lord's as South Africa folded to defeat within four days, sinking quickly to 119 all out.
"It's the perfect start for Joe Root," Botham told Sky Sports.
"Everything went right from the moment he won the toss. He had a bit of luck in his first innings but scored big runs and thereafter everything fell into place. He couldn't have planned it better - it was textbook.
"But as well as Joe played, Moeen had a great game and deserved to be man-of-the-match; it was a magnificent all-round effort with runs to go with his wickets. It was the Mo-show.
"Everyone expected Moeen to bowl well in the second innings on this pitch - he stepped up to the plate.
"Collectively in this match he's probably bowled as well as we've ever seen him; that's because his confidence is high after scoring runs in the first innings."
Jonny Bairstow, dropped on just seven by Vernon Philander at long-off, struck a 74-ball 50 as England suffered their own collapse earlier in the day to be bowled out for 233 in their second innings.
The Yorkshireman then took a stunning one-handed catch down the leg-side to remove debutant Heino Kuhn off the bowling of James Anderson to start the South Africa rot.
"I've known Jonny for a long time - he works hard at every aspect of his game - and he is a very valuable part of the England set up," reflected Botham.
"He's always been able to bat; he had some issues with getting his foot planted when he first played Test cricket and then he had some problems with the short ball but he worked on that and worked it out.
"His wicketkeeping just keeps getting better and better and that is just through hard work. So his success doesn't surprise me and he won't rest.
"He'll always want to go to the next level; I've got a lot of time for Jonny. I think he's been unlucky to miss some of the white-ball cricket that he has missed this year."
Remarkably, 19 wickets fell in the day on a dry pitch of inconsistent bounce that offered the spinners plenty of assistance.
"I thought it was a good wicket because it was a cricket wicket," said Botham. "The pitch is meant to deteriorate and becoming a bit trickier to bat on as the game goes on, you'd expect that.
"Quite often we've seen pitches that have been built for five days and nothing more - a bowlers' graveyard with the game going nowhere. So it was nice to see a cricket pitch.
"South Africa had every opportunity to bowl England out for less in that first innings if they'd taken their chances but they didn't do that.
"Instead England got a good score and they bossed the game from there on in. I think the public want to see pitches like that."
Watch live coverage of the second Test between England and South Africa from 10am this Friday on Sky Sports 2 and in Ultra HD on Sky Q.
