England all-rounder Moeen Ali recently claimed that an Australian player made racial slurs against him during the 2015 Ashes series in England.
Meanwhile, Ali, who recently starred in the Test series against India, made this claims in his autobiography. Moeen Ali wrote that the incident took place during the first Test at Cardiff in 2015. The talented cricketer scored 77 runs in the first innings and took five wickets to help England to a 169-run win.
“It was a great first Ashes Test in terms of my personal performance. However, there was one incident which had distracted me. An Australian player had turned to me on the field and said, ‘Take that, Osama’ [a reference to Islamic terrorist Osama Bin Laden]. I could not believe what I had heard. I have never been so angry on a cricket field,” he wrote.
Furthermore, Moeen Ali added that he discussed the issue with a couple of members from the staff. He also revealed that the concerned cricketer later denied the allegation when asked about.
“I told a couple of the guys what the player had said to me, and I think Trevor Bayliss [the England coach] must have raised it with Darren Lehmann, the Australians’ coach. Lehmann asked the player, ‘Did you call Moeen Osama?’ He denied it, saying, ‘No, I said, ‘Take that, you part-timer.” I must say I was amused when I heard that, obviously I had to take the player’s word for it, though for the rest of the match I was angry,” he continued.
Previously, Moeen Ali revealed that he was subjected to racial abuse during the last Ashes series.
Meanwhile, in an interview in The Times on Friday, Moeen had gone on to call Australia rude and disrespectful. He had also said that he has no sympathy for their banned trio- Steve Smith, David Warner, and Cameron Bancroft.