Was called ‘Osama’ by an Australian player during 2015 Ashes: Moeen Ali

England all-rounder Moeen Ali has made shocking claims that he was called “Osama” by an Australian player during the 2015 Ashes series in England. Reports from the Telegraph suggest that Ali penned down the episode of racial abuse in his autobiography which is set to release later this month.

Narrating the incident which took place in Cardiff in 2015, Ali wrote that he initially didn’t believe his own ears when he racially abused.

“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 remember going really red. I have never been so angry on a cricket field,” Ali, who scored 77 runs in the first innings and also took a five-wicket haul in a winning cause, said, as quoted by The Indian Express.

Adding that he discussed this with the members of the support staff, he continued, “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 also went to call the Australians rude and disrespectful, but singled out the ones he played at Worcestershire with as, “fantastic lovely guys.”

“The first game I ever played against them, in Sydney, just before the 2015 World Cup, they were not just going hard at you, they were almost abusing you. That was the first time it hit me. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, but the more I played against them they were just as bad, the Ashes here (in 2015) they were worse actually. Not intimidating, just rude. Individually they are fine and the Aussies we’ve had at Worcester have been fantastic lovely guys,” Ali wrote.