Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) all-rounder Moeen Ali has shared moments of anxiety for his family when India launched “Operation Sindoor’ in response to the Pahalgam terror attack. The Indian armed forces launched precision strikes targeting terrorist bases in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Pakistan. In the India-Pakistan conflict that followed, the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season was halted. Moeen is among the overseas cricketers who decided against returning to India as the IPL Season 18 resumed following a ceasefire between India and Pakistan. He has revealed that his parents were in the PoK region when Operation Sindoor started.
“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,” Moeen said on the Beard Before Wicket podcast. “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.”
Many overseas cricketers decided to return to their countries after hostilities between India and Pakistan escalated.
“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.
“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.
The former England all-rounder said that he was most worried about the cancellation of flights as the overseas players desperately wanted to leave.
“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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