Veteran England all-rounder Moeen Ali has announced his retirement from international cricket at the age of 37. Moeen took the call after being snubbed for the white-ball series against Australia as revealed by him to DailyMail. Moeen, who last played for England in the T20 World Cup, admitted that he still feels he has a lot to give and wanted to hold on and continue playing for the country but it wasn't in his hands anymore.
"I’ve played a lot of cricket for England. It just felt the time was right. I’ve done my part," Moeen told DailyMail. "Playing for England were the best days of my life. I could hold on and try to play for England again, but I know in reality I won’t."
"Even retiring, I don’t feel it’s because I’m not good enough - I still feel I can play. But I get how things are, and the team needs to evolve into another cycle.
"I'm very proud. When you first play for England, you don't know how many games you're going to play. So to play nearly 300…My first few years were all about Test cricket. Once Morgs [Eoin Morgan] took over the one-day stuff, that was more fun. But Test cricket was the proper cricket," Moeen added.
Moeen represented England in 298 matches across formats and proved to be one of the important members of the side in the two World Cup wins in 2019 in ODIs and 2022 in T20Is. Moeen formed a lethal spin combo with Adil Rashid in white-ball cricket and when needed, he played a crucial role in Test wins for England, including in the Ashes last year where he made a U-turn from retirement in the format.
Winning the World Cups and the Ashes was great, however, Moeen looked back at his Test hat-trick most fondly. "Winning the Ashes and two World Cups was great, but from an individual point of view it was my Test hat-trick against South Africa at the Oval to win us the game. And I'm proud to have the fastest T20 50 for England."
Moeen, however, will continue to feature in T20 franchise cricket. After having featured in the IPL for Chennai Super Kings, in SA20 for Joburg Super Kings and in the Bangladesh Premier League for the Comilla Victorians, Moeen will be making his CPL debut for the Guyana Amazon Warriors after being signed up as a replacement player for Saim Ayub.
