London: County side Yorkshire have set their sights on England all-rounder Moeen Ali, whose contract with Worcestershire ends this summer, after the 34-year-old recently declared his intention to come out of Test retirement.
Moeen has been with Worcestershire for 15 years and recently declared that if new England coach Brendon McCullum and skipper Ben Stokes so desired, he would be willing to give another shot at Test cricket.
Ali will be free to leave Worcestershire once his contract ends this summer, and a report in Daily Mail said that “clubs can approach players in such situations from this month onwards”.
The report added that Yorkshire were looking for a player at the top of the order and Moeen suited them as he has 225 international caps.
The report added that Moeen could go to Yorkshire, given that the county side’s bowling coach Kabir Ali and leg-spinner Adil Rashid are friends with the charismatic cricketer.
Ali has a superb Test career, taking 195 wickets and scoring 2,914 runs. He decided to take retirement from the longest version of the game last September to prolong his white-ball career.
Speaking to the BBC’s Test Match Special on Saturday, Moeen had said, “I said to Brendon (McCullum) the door is never always closed if your country needs you, or guys are injured or your team needs you for balance. So yeah, I’m keen.
“To be honest, I’d love to play under him and Stokesy (Ben Stokes). Both (coach and captain) of them have that character about them. They’re very aggressive. I think I would suit their cricket a bit more and I think they feel I would suit them as well.”
Moeen could well be included in the historic three-Test series in Pakistan later this year, given his desire to play Test cricket.
–IANS