The all-rounder has struggled to find a rhythm with his bowling after suffering a side strain in the build-up to Brisbane and then cutting his spinning finger during that first Test. His two wickets at 98 apiece have paled in comparison to Lyon’s 11 at 22.72.

But Moeen insists that with his side now fully mended and his finger nearly right he is desperate to make his mark on the series when the two sides meet in a do-or-die clash at the WACA.

“You obviously feel like you have let the team down and the captain especially, and while I’ve done that before in the past when [Alastair] Cook was captain it is not an easy thing,” he said.

“The injuries have played a part, especially in the first game – there was a time in Brisbane when I couldn’t feel the ball in my fingers it was so sore. But in Adelaide I was fine.

“With a bit more time off it will be fine for Perth and I do believe I can bowl better for the team and turn it around.”

Moeen said the side strain limited his preparation for the Gabba, then the
“sharper” seam of the Kookaburra ball caused a cut on his right index finger that he could not get right.

“People have been telling me to put all sorts of things from putting olive oil on it to ‘weeing’ on it! That is a myth I think and no I haven’t done – that cannot be right! But you don’t know whether to soften it or toughen it up.”

Moeen will captain the England XI lining up against Cricket Australia XI at Richardson Park in a two-day match starting today, but significantly is not going to bowl in order to give it another three days healing.

The all-rounder is the only member of the Test XI for Perth playing after telling management he wanted time in the middle with the bat.

However, it is a clever move by England to hand him the captaincy, given Moeen’s confidence particularly with the ball can often seem a fragile thing. Pumping up his tyres before Perth is a sound strategy.

Yet as much as the injuries it is Lyon’s stellar start that appears to have dented the belief. Moeen may have fallen victim four times to Lyon in four innings yet his confidence with a bat in hand is more robust and, in Brisbane certainly, the England player tackled him well, scoring 49 runs from 102 balls, 11 fours and a six, and at an acceptable strike rate of 48.00.

Indeed if Lyon has looked vulnerable at all in this series, it was when Moeen was batting with Dawid Malan then Jonny Bairstow in the first innings of both Tests.

“He has set some very good fields and got me out four times now but when I look back at the four dismissals I would say the stumping [in the first innings in Brisbane] could have gone both ways,” said Moeen.

“And the lbw the other day [second innings in Adelaide] could have gone my way but didn’t. In between he had a good caught and bowled so, overall, I am not too thingy about it.”

Moeen is not the type to get too ‘thingy’ about anything – it would be hard to pick a more laid back soul in the England set-up. Even some moronic abuse from the crowd – he revealed someone had shouted ‘what time does your kebab shop open, mate?’ – was met with a casual shrug.

But such phlegmatism does not indicate a lack of drive, rather that his equilibrium is rarely upset.

“There is always going to be a time or a series that you won’t bowl or bat as well so you don’t want to get carried away,” he said. “Lyon is bowling so well, everything from the revs to the areas he is bowling.

“The hardest thing is you try and compare yourself to that and you try even harder and it quite a difficult thing sometimes.

“But he has a lot more bowling under his belt than I have as an international spinner. I’m sure he has had periods when he has not bowled that well as well.

“I didn’t want to say I was a top spinner after the summer at the time because I knew how difficult it was going to be in Australia. Even with the batting never try and get too over-confident or down about things, just go with the flow.”