- Thursday, August 11, 2022
By: Pramod Thomas
ENGLAND cricketer Jofra Archer has hits out at Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen for her comment that his team-mate Moeen Ali could have joined ISIS.
Nasreen commented on Twitter that England all-rounder Moeen would have become a terrorist if not for cricket.
In a post later deleted, she wrote: “If Moeen Ali were not stuck with cricket, he would have gone to Syria to join ISIS,” reported The Daily Mail.
For her comment, Archer replied: “Are you okay? I don’t think you’re okay.”
Nasreen defended the controversial remark in a later tweet, claiming it was ‘sarcastic’.
She wrote: “Haters know very well that my Moeen Ali tweet was sarcastic. But they made that an issue to humiliate me because I try to secularize Muslim society & I oppose Islamic fanaticism.”
Archer, who won the 2019 Cricket World Cup alongside Ali, responded: “Sarcastic? No one is laughing, not even yourself, the least you can do is delete the tweet.”
According to reports, Nottinghamshire’s Ben Duckett and Lancashire bowler Saqib Mahmood have also described the tweet as ‘disgusting’.
Ali, 33, is currently in India gearing up for the forthcoming Indian Super League with the Chennai Super Kings. Archer, 26, is hopeful of playing at least some of the IPL season with Rajasthan Royals after he underwent an operation to remove a piece of glass embedded in his right middle finger after smashing a fish tank.
Nasreen, 58, has been living in exile since 1994 after being banished from her Bangladesh homeland for writing essays and novels that criticised ‘misogynistic’ religions.
Her tweet came a few days after Chennai Super Kings chief executive Kasi Viswanathan rubbished reports that teetotal Moeen had requested the franchise remove an alcohol brand logo from their match jersey.
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