England all-rounder Moeen Ali may have retired from international cricket; however, the veteran is still in demand in the T20 franchise circuit. Having been released by the Chennai Super Kings before the IPL 2025 auction, Moeen was picked by the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at his base price and on his debut in purple, the off-spinner made it count. Sunil Narine's shoes weren't easy to fill as the mystery spinner was ill, but on a helpful track in Guwahati, Moeen did the job for KKR against the Rajasthan Royals, taking a couple of crucial wickets.
KKR rectified their mistake of introducing Varun Chakravarthy early and instead had Moeen bowl in the powerplay. Moeen mentioned that his job was to contain and bowl as tight as he could for Chakravarthy to exploit the conditions.
"I came on before him, so my job was to bowl tight as I can and then maybe he can build a bit of pressure as well or get the wicket," Moeen said at the post-match press conference. "I am used to bowling with somebody who is better than me and has more mystery than me. So, my job there is to bowl as tight as I can and hopefully, that builds pressure for that person then to get wickets," Moeen added.
"He is bowling outstandingly well as we know. He is a brilliant bowler and has improved so much over the last 2-3 years and yeah, it's amazing to bowl with somebody like that."
Moeen sent back a couple of southpaws Yashasvi Jaiswal and Nitish Rana to build further pressure on the Royals, who had already lost their regular skipper and the acting one Sanju Samson and Riyan Parag early.
If Narine is fit, he is likely to come back into the line-up for KKR in the next game against the Mumbai Indians. However, Moeen's performance with the ball will certainly take the management's headache away as to 'if not Narine then who?' question if something happens to the West Indies spinner.
KKR notched up first points for the season with Quinton de Kock smashing an unbeaten 97 to take his team through a rather comfortable chase in the end. The Royals, on the other hand, have lost two matches in a row.