Moeen Ali

An English cricketer of Pakistani descent, Moeen Ali, played county cricket for Warwickshire before moving over to Worcestershire after the 2006 season. He enjoyed a successful stint at Warwickshire, winning the NBC Dennis Compton Award for two years in a row in 2004 and 2005.

He was a child prodigy and at the tender age of 15 rivalled many established cricketers. He was awarded the captaincy of England's Under-19 squad for the 2006 World Cup and took the team to the semi-finals, a particularly impressive performance coming from a 11-0 drubbing received in Bangladesh, earlier that year. Moeen, continued to be a consistent performer for Worcestershire and was the acting captain at the start of the 2011 season as the usual club captain, Daryl Mitchell was injured.

Moeen had the most prolific championship season in 2013, scoring a whopping 1,375 runs in 17 First-Class games, which included four tons and eight fifties. His bowling was equally outstanding as he gathered 31 wickets. This strong display earned him the Professional Cricketers Association's player of the year award, a place in the England Performance Programme tour to Australia and was also picked in England Lions’ trip to Sri Lanka. He then, made his ODI debut against West Indies in February 2014 and registered his maiden fifty in the third ODI. He also played the 2014 World T20 in Bangladesh.

It was Moeen's off-breaks that earned him a call to the England Test side. After the retirement of Graeme Swann, England were searching for a spinner to take up the vacant role and they saw Moeen fit for the job. He made his debut against Sri Lanka at Lord's and made 48 in his very first innings. During the second Test, Moeen showed his pedigree with the bat by scoring a patient 108 not out and almost saved the game for England, but failed to do so as the last man James Anderson fell to the penultimate ball of the game.

During the home series against India, Moeen bamboozled the opposition batsmen with his off-breaks. The visitors didn't respect the off-spinner and kept giving him wickets. By the end of the series, Moeen had picked up 19 wickets and was the second highest wicket-taker for England. However, he could not contribute much with the bat as he failed to score a single fifty.
Coming back to the ODIs, after Hales failed to impress, Moeen was given the opportunity to open the innings in Sri Lanka. The Worcestershire man didn't disappoint, as Moeen scored his maiden ODI ton at Colombo (RPS). Since that knock, he has made the opening slot his own. Having been picked for the 2015 World Cup, Moeen will be someone to watch out for, with both bat and ball.

Moeen belongs to a strong cricketing pedigree, with his brother Kadeer and cousin Kabir, both playing in the county circuit. Once termed as an elephant in the dressing room, Moeen Ali grew leaps and bounds post the 2015 World Cup and established a crucial spinner-cum-all-rounder slot in the Test side. During the Test series in India, Moeen struggled to match the quality of Ashwin and Jadeja, but made useful contributions with the bat. His breakthrough point in Test career came against South Africa at home, where he bagged 25 wickets whilst piling up 261 runs in 4 Tests for which he was accorded with the Player of the Series award.

Moeen retired from Tests in 2021 but is an integral part of England's white-ball teams who are currently the world champions in both ODIs and T20Is.

IPL through the years

The post 2015 World Cup England side has seen him explosive players and Moeen Ali is one among them. With ECB allowing their players to participate in the IPL, it was no surprise that Ali was one of the nine English players to be picked. Royal Challengers bought him for INR 1.7 crore.

He did not start immediately as the team preferred seam bowling all rounders like Woakes and de Grandhomme. But Ali did get a chance and in his fourth game, played a match winning knock of 64 and was involved in a 107-run stand with AB de Villiers where he outscored the South African. That small glimpse was enough to convince the RCB management to retain him for the next season. In the 2019 edition, Moeen struck two fifties and a couple of cameos for his franchise. However, in certain games Moeen was under-used by his team. With the ball, his economy rate was under 7. The Englishman left his team before the conclusion of the tournament to prepare for the World Cup.

Ahead of the 2021 auction, Moeen was bought by Chennai Super Kings for INR 7 crores and was retained for INR 8 crore ahead of the 2022 mega auction.

By Hariprasad Sadanandan