Moeen Ali hilariously ignored by England teammate Jofra Archer after first T20I against India

Moeen Ali warmed the bench as his England teammates thrashed India by eight wickets in the first T20I at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad. The world number one T20I side thoroughly dominated the contest to take the lead in the five-match series. Bowling first, England restricted India to a modest total of 124 for 7.

Asked to bat first, India were off to a poor start as their top-order completely failed. Shikhar Dhawan (4), KL Rahul (1), and Virat Kohli (0) failed at the top, and India never really managed to recover from the setbacks. They kept losing wickets at crucial junctures and consequently, their innings did not get the impetus.

Shreyas Iyer was the only player who managed to put up a good resistance with the bat. The right-handed batsman scored 67 off 48 balls to guide India to a respectable total. But the score did not turn out to be enough as England chased it down inside 16 overs by losing just two wickets. Any chance of an unlikely comeback for India was quashed by Jason Roy and Jos Buttler as the duo added 72 runs for the first wicket before Jonny Bairstow and Dawid Malan took the team home by sharing an unbeaten stand of 41 runs.

Moeen Ali blanked by Jofra Archer

As if warming the bench was not enough, Moeen Ali had another reason to feel bad on Friday as he was hilariously blanked by Jofra Archer. The incident happened after the game ended and England players were congratulating each other. As Archer headed to shake hands with Adil Rashid, Moeen extended his arms too.

The all-rounder thought that Archer would shake hands with him but the latter went on to hug Rashid, leaving Moeen completely blanked. Moeen had his palm out for absolute ages as Archer completely ignored him although unintentionally.

Here is a clip of the hilarious incident:

Ouch pic.twitter.com/IOWFIW3Z1g

— Maara (@QuickWristSpin) March 12, 2021

Meanwhile, Archer had a good outing in the first T20I. The right-handed bowler was the pick of the bowlers for England, taking three for 23 off his four overs. He gave England the first breakthrough by dismissing KL Rahul before dismissing Hardik Pandya and Shardul Thakur.