England all-rounder Moeen Ali has made a startling revelation about the whereabouts of his parents, who were in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) when India began the Operation Sindoor.
“My parents were actually in Kashmir (PoK) at the time… in Pakistan, only about an hour away from where the strikes happened, probably. Maybe a bit farther," said Moeen, who is currently playing for the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the IPL, on the Beard Before Wicket podcast.
Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!"It was a bit crazy, and then they managed to get the only flights out on that day. I was glad they got out, but it was crazy.”
Sharing his own experience when the IPL was halted for a week, Moeen said: “It was mad. Obviously, there were those attacks in Kashmir before everything really kicked off. Then within no time, things just rapidly escalated, and all of a sudden we were in the middle of it.
"It felt like we were in the middle of a war, but obviously we didn’t hear anything (like missiles striking). All of a sudden, you’re just scrambling to get out of the country and just trying to make sure your family’s fine. People are worried about you back home, and you just want to make sure they’re at ease as well.”
Moeen Ali, who has Pakistani roots, recollected the experience after the game between Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals was halted abruptly during the first innings in Dharamsala due to blackouts in certain parts of the country.
Who's that IPL player?“People weren’t quite sure what was happening or how things were. I spoke to a lot of the guys. Some of them were like, ‘There won’t be a war; everything will be fine. These things have happened before.’ Some guys were like, ‘I think there’ll be a war. I think there’ll be some sort of retaliation or whatever you want to call it,’" he said.
“There’s so much lying going on that it’s hard to believe people — especially the news outlets and journalists. You don’t know exactly what’s going on, and that’s the scary bit, because you don’t know where you stand. You don’t know if things are going to escalate quickly. The thing we were most worried about was flights getting cancelled and not being able to get out.
"But it must be so much harder for the local players or for guys who are Pakistani or Indian, stuck there not knowing what’s going to happen.”
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