Moeen Ali confident of winning Abu Dhabi T10 league

Dubai: England’s star all-rounder and Morrisville Samp Army Moeen Ali is confident of winning the Abu Dhabi T10 title this year.

Moeen is the captain of the Samp Army franchise, which is one of the eight teams, who will participate in the tournament. Abu Dhabi T10 will get underway from November 28 at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi. A total of eight teams will battle it out for the top honours.

“We had missed out on the last occasion. We came agonizingly close to winning the title but missed it by a whisker. We are confident of putting up a better performance this time around to emerge victorious,” stressed Moeen.

“We have a very strong squad. There are hard-hitting batsmen, ferocious pacers and wily spinners. It is a well-balanced squad. I think we stand a great chance of winning the title,” added the England all-rounder, who came out of retirement earlier this year to play in the Ashes against Australia.

Abu Dhabi T10 is one kind of tournament in the world. It is a shortest-format league of cricket, which is sanctioned by ICC, affiliated with the Emirates Cricket Board and organised under the patronage of the Abu Dhabi Cricket Council.

Defending champions Deccan Gladiators and New York Strikers will get the ball rolling in the opening game of the tournament.

Apart from the two teams, Northern Warriors, Morrisville Samp Army, Delhi Bulls, Team Abu Dhabi, Bengal Tigers and Chennai Braves are also part of the T10 cricket tournament. The tournament will run for 12 days from November 28 to December 9.

After the completion of the primary round, the final top-four teams will qualify for the play-offs. Qualifier 1 will witness the top two teams take on each other on December, 2023 whereas the third and fourth team will play the Eliminator match.

The winner of the Eliminator will play the loser of Qualifier 1 for a place in the final while the winner of the Qualifier 1 will directly move into the title showdown.

Samp Army who had finished on the second spot in the 2022 edition of the tournament will start their campaign against Northern Warriors in the second match of the opening day.

Moeen also hopes some changes will take place in the England squad after the dismal performance of England at the 2023 ODI World Cup big changes are on the card.

England crashed out of the World Cup before the knock-out stages. They came into the showpiece event as the firm favourites but failed to live up to their expectations.

“It was a very disappointing performance by us. We failed to deliver in every aspect of the game. We did not play to our potential. I hope there will be some big changes in the England team,” said Moeen, who was speaking on the sidelines of a press conference in Dubai ahead of the Abu Dhabi T10.

England got their campaign off to a disastrous start against 2019 runners-up New Zealand. They failed to get over the bad start and kept on slumping to new lows as they were beaten by even Afghanistan.