sport news Moeen Ali won't be playing Test cricket for England again trends now
Moeen ALI has closed the door on an England Test recall as he revealed he will not tour Pakistan this winter despite ‘unretiring’ in the summer.
Writing exclusively in Sportsmail today, Moeen says he will not be available for England’s trip, despite saying earlier in the year that he was excited by the direction of the team under captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum.
Moeen, 35, said of the Pakistan tour: ‘That’s a trip I won’t be making sadly. It’s not something I’m keen on doing any more.
Moeen Ali has revealed he will not play test cricket for England after unretiring in the summer
‘I’ve had an honest chat with Baz (McCullum) and I can’t see myself being stuck in hotels for another month and playing to the best of my ability. Baz phoned me, we spoke at length and I said, “Sorry, I’m done”. He understands, he knows the feeling.
‘Watching the boys, I got the feeling this is how I’ve always wanted to play the game but the more I thought about it and discussed it with those close to me, I knew deep down why I was done.
‘Test cricket is hard work. I’m 35 and something’s got to give. I want to enjoy my cricket and it wouldn’t be fair to reverse my decision and then struggle to give it my all.
‘It’s time to close the door on that side of my career. To play 64 Tests for England has been a privilege and a dream fulfilled.’
I'm delighted with how we’ve played over the past fortnight. It’s been a brilliant series and I genuinely think we should have won five or six of the seven games, but that’s T20 cricket for you.
It’s a great learning curve for this squad as we go about that transition and into a World Cup.
Moeen Ali was in action for England's T20 side in their latest tour against Pakistan
We missed a couple of opportunities when we didn’t chase down some relatively low-ish totals both in Karachi and Lahore, but to win the series having been 3-2 down was great and a superb fightback.
Again you can see our strength in depth — winning a series while making so many changes for each game shows how players just come in and out almost seamlessly. I think that’s a huge plus.
We’ve had some real positives — the return of Mark Wood and Chris Woakes after a long time away with injuries and we’ve bowled well as a unit on what were batting-friendly surfaces against players who know the conditions.
Every man has made his contributions. The way Phil Salt played the other night isn’t easy, especially after some low scores, but he showed what he was all about again. We know how devastating Salty can be and Dawid Malan was awesome on Sunday.
