Moeen Ali lined up for shock return to English domestic cricket

The former England all-rounder appeared to have played his final match in county cricket for boyhood club Warwickshire in last summer’s T20 Blast.

But reports now claim the 38-year-old will sign for Yorkshire as a specialist T20 player for this year’s tournament.

Moeen, who has continued to play in franchise leagues abroad and recently relocated his family from Birmingham to Dubai, announced his decision to retire from the domestic game last February.

Though he pulled out of last summer’s edition of The Hundred, he did feature for the Bears in the Blast, with a low-key outing at Leicestershire on July 4 his final appearance.

But it now appears not to have been his last on English soil with Yorkshire poised to become the third county of his career.

Moeen came through the ranks at Warwickshire but spent 15 years at Worcestershire, whom he captained to victory in the Blast in 2018.

He made his England Test debut in 2014 and went on to score more than 3,000 runs and take 200 wickets.

In the game’s shorter formats, he was part of the teams which won the 2019 World Cup and T20 World Cup in 2022.

Moeen retired from Test cricket in 2021 before coming back to play in the 2023 home Ashes series against Australia, which ended in a 2-2 draw.

He then finally called time on his international career in September 2024 and has most recently been playing in the Bangladesh Premier League.