Moeen Ali, the Englishman and CSK legendary all-rounder who has represented the Three Lions across all formats of the game, has announced his retirement from international cricket recently. While being left out of the ODI tour against Australia, the 37-year-old had expressed that it seemed to be the right time to draw the curtains on his career.
Moeen Ali goes out as one of England’s all-time greats, as he is among the players to have scored 5000+ runs in the format and also having picked 300+ wickets, and one of England’s most successful all-rounders, leaving behind the likes of Ian Botham and Andrew Flintoff.
Other than this national team glory, where he won the T20 World Cup with the team in 2022 under skipper Buttler, the first of his biggest glories came when England lifted their first-ever World Cup in 2019 under skipper Eoin Morgan.
Starting his career as a Test all-rounder, Moeen went on to secure a place in the other two limited-over formats. He also turned out to be one of the world’s finest T20I all-rounders who played the best-ever cameos for his sides.
Moeen also has his two most memorable moments, of which one was his stunning 16-ball record fastest T20I fifty for England and the other being his Test hat-trick.
Moeen has represented teams around several global competitions, of which the Indian Premier League has been the most eminent, as the all-rounder played earlier for Royal Challengers Bangalore and then later enjoyed supremacy at the Chennai Super Kings camp.
Moeen has played under skipper Dhoni since 2021, as he was brought in from the RCB. Ali has been given the most versatile role in the CSK den, as he has sometimes played the role of a No. 3 while he also batted in the middle order and sometimes in the role of a third finisher alongside the great MS Dhoni and Shivam Dube.
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Though he has not been often handed the ball, he has been effective for skipper Dhoni whenever he was placed to bowl his off-spin. Often playing on the tracks of home ground at Chepauk, he has proved to be effective on the slow track.
In a recent interview post the announcement of his retirement, he claimed former Indian and CSK skipper MS Dhoni to be the best-ever captain he has played for. Alongside praising his skills as a top-notch finisher in the shortest format of the game and his unique game tactics to learn from, he accented Dhoni, saying, “I would have to say MS Dhoni is also the best captain I’ve played under, obviously.”.
Though nothing is confirmed yet, there are still not many chances of him featuring as the CSK all-rounder or being retained, and hence the auction might see a player of his caliber being picked by another team if CSK doesn’t find him handy enough to use their RTM card for.
