PIONEER SPORT catches up with Moeen Ali's father Muneer in Birmingham to bring you an amazing story of a Muslim boy who pulled himself out of teenage rut to play for England with a feared beard which he refused to believe would trim his career amid all the Islamophobia

His home, he says, has been turned upside down. Pulled apart to build anew. Just like his son has been pulling apart oppositions all over the world with both the bat and the ball. Not home, but the old man agrees to meet you at his brother’s grandson’s cricket match at Woodbourne Sports Club, Solihull.

It took me three long hours, many wrong buses and a £10 taxi to finally reach the green stretch on the outside of Birmingham. But the journey, Muneer Ali says much later into the interview, should have been worth my while.

Why? Because I got to see how children in England get involved in cricket, how they are honed through weekend games with parents being the spectators and how gloriously green clubs like Woodbourne, operational since 1961 have been drilling sports into generations despite never being a beep on England’s cricketing map.

Maybe true but Muneer, many years back, watched his own son being coached similarly. “Cricket gave him direction, much like religion did,” Muneer tells you.

We know his son as Moeen Ali today, the all-rounder batsman spinner who is news on many counts over and above his long beard and very Muslim appearance. His hat-trick against Australia in 2017, his gentle humour in the dressing room, his work with orphans and his in-and-out of the English team existence when the hosts are making their biggest bid to lift the World Cup for the first time ever are his father Muneer’s intense talking points.

But those were difficult days when Muneer carved a cricketing dream around his three sons. “For an Asian, it is very hard to break into the English team but you have to have the talent. One good thing about here is that the media will help you. If you work hard and produce the goods, you will get recognised and selected. Always extremely hard. Moeen being a Muslim with a beard I thought it would be much harder. But because he was so talented he made everything become easy,” Muneer says.

Indeed, with 18 counties and so many talented players, it would have been a difficult climb into the top echelons of English cricket.

“I remember once Moeen was doing very well and they asked him if he was disappointed for not being selected for England and he said: ‘Yes and no. Yes, in one way I am disappointed but, in another way, I am not because there are too many better players in the county who deserve a chance before me,” Muneer recalls.

A lot of people told Muneer to shave off Moeen’s beard or trim it down or he won’t get picked for England. But Moeen refused, saying: “My belief, my religion, my faith will stay whether I play the game or not,” Muneer tells you with pride years down the line and when his son’s facial hair has made as strong a statement in the English dressing room as his bat and bowling have done.

A lot of international players, Muneer adds, have beards now, be it the English or the Kiwis, it has become a trend. “The English media talked about him and WG Grace.They said Grace was one man who was founder of the game and he had a beard, so why not Moeen? A lot of Indian players have beards, I am happy and proud about it,” he asserts.

Not long ago though, Muneer was a worried man when his wayward 14-year-old son suddenly turned into a devout Muslim, reading namaz five times a day, getting engrossed in the Quran and doing things that were very unlike him.

“Religion gave him focus in regular life. A lot of Muslims read the Quran just for the sake of reading but Moeen was reading and understanding. That, I think, was helpful for him. As a person he changed, became much calmer. Also, he changed the atmosphere in the house. Kids started following him. But personally, I was a bit worried about this change. My focus was to see him play the international game. I was afraid all this would take his focus away. With all the extremists happening, I thought that he shouldn’t get mixed up with the wrong people,” Muneer recalls.

But Moeen, known for his calming skills and gentle demeanour, sat his father down and said: “Dad relax, whatever happens now will happen with the will of God.” Muneer was not convinced. He asked his son for something, hesitatingly. “Moeen you give me two years of your life and I will give you your rest of the life. For two years, just hard work,” he said.

So, the father and son worked seven days a week for an year. Moeen got his first professional contract to play cricket at age 15. He was the youngest one to get it at Warwickshire. “All of a sudden, he was playing with the pros, people like Ian Bell and Jonathan Trot, that was his learning,” says Muneer.

When Moeen was first picked for the England team, he was playing in Sri Lanka. He rang up his father from there and said: “Dad have you seen the news, I have been picked for the England team?” Next day, he rung him up again and said: “Dad don’t be too happy. Because when I am dropped you will be sad.”

That’s Moeen for you, calm in all circumstances, prepared for the best and the worst. But not his father. The long struggle — financial, physical and emotional — drained him but did not put him down because he was a man possessed. A psychiatrist nurse by profession, he gave up his job to make his son an international cricketer. Moeen has said in interviews that he suspects his father was sacked because he dozed off on duty due to sheer exhaustion around cricket mores.

“I was a qualified psychiatric nurse in the hospital. When the boys started playing cricket I gave up my job because the hours were very anti-social. I started doing coaching courses. I did a diploma in sports psychology from the open university and then I worked towards building my sons’ careers. Financially, it was very difficult because I had no job left then,” Muneer tells you.

What he doesn’t say is that he was a taxi driver for quite some time to make ends meet, something which the cab driver taking you to Woodbourne reveals much earlier.

Like 90 per cent of the Muslim population in Birmingham, Muneer too is a Mirpuri and hails from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. His mother though was very English and his three sons, including Moeen, are thoroughbred Englishmen with mixed blood.

“I wanted at least one of my three boys to play for Pakistan but that was not meant to be because they were all born here and wanted to be here. Moeen did go to Pakistan many years back when he was 14 and he played in the tournament there and did well. They were very keen on his whereabouts but he said, “I don’t not want to play for Pakistan. I want to play for England,” Muneer recalls.

Muneer says he has gone hungry the whole day because he had just £1 in his pocket once to feed his other son Kadeer who was playing in a game. “I took some sandwiches from home and Kadeer was fed. I stayed on just water. I saved that pound to buy chips for him. I was struggling with the mortgage bill but I never borrowed money. My brother and I went to the farm and would buy some chickens. We would then cut the chickens and sell them door to door and 50p or 60p we used to make profit on the chicken. That money we used for the boys’ coaching and training,” Muneer tells you with a pronounced stammer, something Moeen has gone on record saying was due to the pressure of racism in his growing days.

To keep the cricket up, Muneer bought a bowling machine, dug up his garden and put nets all over the place “which cost us a lot of money when I did not have much. What I earned I spent on the boys’ game and on nothing else, no holidays nothing,” he says.

Muneer went through the rigours with a heart attack and a minor stroke but his determination was that at least one of his boys would play international cricket. Moeen rose to the occasion with equal dedication.

“Even my family was against me because they thought I was wasting my time and money and that the boys ain’t going to make it in England because only grammar school boys went to counties. But for me there was no left turn, no right turn, it was all straight and focussed to succeed,” he says.

After he had a heart attack he was hospitalised for a week. “I came out and carried along. I did not want to delay for six months as their game would go down. I put on weight and became 28 stone. I had Diabetes, blood pressure but I was just focussed on the boys,” he says.

Moeen, meanwhile, went up the ranks pretty fast, hopping clubs, from Warwickshire to Worcestershire and finally to the English team where he is today, a pillar of slow bowling and a batsman of worth. Much like KL Rahul he shifts and adapts positions with ease. As an opener, he scored centuries and has now become a specialist No 7, which he says, is the most difficult slot to be in.

“No 7 is not an easy position. The way you play is dictated by the pace of the game and you have to try to get quick runs. Even top players like Jos Butler and Ben Stokes find it hard. To come in and hit it is not always easy. I once heard from a great player that if you come off three times in 10, you’ve done really well,” Moeen said in one of the interviews. That player was MS Dhoni.

Moeen, who plays alongside Virat Kohli in Royal Challengers Bangalore, is called Mr Nice by the Indian skipper who was recently Moeen’s guest for dinner along with Anushka. Not that the rest of the English squad is any less friendly because Moeen is known to be the guy who keeps the dressing room fun and alive.

But at 32, Muneer says Moeen will be looking at options that keep him with the family for longer times. He rushed in and out of the dressing room on June 12 when his wife delivered a baby girl in the midst of England’s World Cup campaign. His five-year-old son Abu Bacher is already under his dad’s and grandad’s wing for his eye-hand co-ordination and even as Moeen switched from seam to spin bowling after a backache and would like to be known as a batsman who can also spin, his son is looking for a purely seaming career

“Abu has good eye and hand co-ordination. He doesn’t bend so he can run in and bowl. All the basic level skills are there which is very reassuring. What I started 20 years ago is coming to an end. I want to start all over again with Moeen’s son now,” Muneer, who runs a training academy, says looking away towards his brother’s grandson batting with a straight bat.

Abu, however, at the moment bowls medium pace. But he is basically a batsman who can bat both right hand and left hand. Moeen wants him to bat left. Like father, like son. Moeen bats left and bowls right hand.

For now, Moeen is at his peak, living up to of his name which in the Quran means helper, supporter, or provider of refuge. His father thinks he needs to carry on for another four or five years before receding into 20-20 leagues that give him time with the family.

“He has done all the World Cups and 20/20s. I would like to see him win a World Cup,” Muneer says with evident longing.

England, and Moeen, as we know are on that road looking solid as never before.