England quick Tymal Mills has revealed Moeen Ali's son poked fun for the "easy" catch he put down in the crucial win over New Zealand at the T20 World Cup.
In what was essentially a must-win game for England, Moeen inexplicably dropped New Zealand star Glenn Phillips when he was on 15. Phillips, who had struck a brilliant hundred in the previous game against Sri Lanka, miscued a big shot off Adil Rashid and the ball looped straight towards Moeen.
However, the all-rounder was unable to even get a hand on it, with the catch going down and Phillips threatening to win the game for New Zealand with a brilliant 62 off 36. "It is one of those ones you can laugh about now," Mills said on his BBC podcast Good Pace for Radio with Mark Wood.
"Mo has his son out here and he was saying in the airport how bad and easy a drop it was!" To which Wood added: "He didn't get a hand on it! It hit him in the chest."
The pair were also full of praise for captain Jos Buttler, who top scored with a 47-ball 73 to set up England's victory. "When he was batting with Mo he was punching his glove, he wasn't just tapping them," Wood said.
"He has that in him. He is a quiet guy but has that fiery competitive side to him. He was desperate for England to get through.
"His eyes were almost glazed. [Ben] Stokes in the 2019 World Cup final comes to mind for me when I went out to run with him, and also Jonny Bairstow. Jonny can get in a mood where he has the eyes on.
"Jonny once said to me 'let's see through these next overs' - we were in New Zealand and under a bit of pressure - and he hit the next ball off Neil Wagner for six!" Mills added: "I was running messages and drinks onto the field and there are times as 12th man one of your jobs is to get info from batters in the middle and relay it.
"Sometimes I'd go out and say 'have you got anything for the boys?' and he would give me very little. He was almost in the zone. It meant a lot to him to get to the score we needed."
