Moeen Ali, who is now one of the biggest name in international cricket for England cricket team, recently entered record books once again by claiming a hat-trick in Tests. It happened during the final day of 3rd Test between England and South Africa at The Oval, which helped his team win the match by 239 runs.
After giving another match-winning performance for England, Moeen opened up on his possible life without cricket in an interview with The Guardian. Moeen revealed a shocking bit about his life by accepting that he could have become drug addict if not cricket. “If it wasn’t for cricket I don’t know what I’d be doing now,” he says. “I could have easily gone into that whole drugs line. I was pretty open to it because my friends were easily influenced. I get dared pretty easy. If someone dares me to do something I’ll just do it. I used to go: ‘Yeah, why not?'”
The star England all-rounder further adds, “Them days were tough but even then I knew that was wrong. I also know from the age of 12 that cricket was the only thing I was going to do. I thought: ‘If it’s not good for my cricket I’m not doing anything.’ But there’s a group of guys who are the coolest in the school and you want to be part of that. You feel you have to do things you wouldn’t normally do but most of the time I was pretty normal.”
Moeen then went on to speak about the struggle made by his family, especially by his father and expressed, “It was much harder for my dad and his brother. They are twins and they went through a lot. They both stammered – and still do. My dad is not as bad as his twin and he speaks more now but the hardship continued. My dad had to give up his job as a psychiatric nurse. He got caught sleeping because he was exhausted. Even to this day he said he gave up the job but I think they got rid of him. He also suffered a minor stroke when I was about 13.”
It seemed like cricket was the only hope for Moeen’s future and his family too. “It took a lot of sacrifice from my dad. He managed to put cricket nets in our garden because he knew we had to practise every day. That would also keep us away from the streets. My dad and uncle were so protective so whenever someone would say or do something to harm us they were right there. They were very shy but you cross a line with them and the temper can get quite rough.”
The 30-year old English cricketer then went on to reveal a story where a guy nearly killed him when he was just 14. “There was an incident where a guy nearly killed me on this road. I was 14 and he wanted to hurt me. He was an Asian guy so it wasn’t racist – unless he thought I was a white kid because I used to be very fair. But to this day I don’t know why he did that. My dad was angry but thankfully some firemen stopped everything,” Moeen said.
