Moeen Ali: “There were other players in the team who wanted to take it further but he talked them into not taking it any further”

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England head coach Trevor Bayliss has revealed that all-rounder Moeen Ali stopped his teammates from lodging a complaint after he was allegedly called “Osama” by an Australian player.

In his soon-to-be-released autobiography, Moeen wrote that the alleged incident occurred in the first Test in Cardiff during the 2015 Ashes series.

Moeen recalled being extremely infuriated about the comment, but refused to escalate things further.

Since the allegations have been made public, Cricket Australia have confirmed that they will launch an investigation into the matter.

Bayliss revealed that he spoke to then Australia head coach Darren Lehmann, who asked the player in question whether he had made the remark.

The player denied calling Moeen “Osama” and insisted that he said “part-timer”.

“No, he didn’t want it to go any further,” Bayliss told Sydney’s Daily Telegraph as quoted by ESPNcricinfo. “He’s a very softly spoken sort of a bloke. He doesn’t want to create too many problems for anyone. There were other players in the team who wanted to take it further but he talked them into not taking it any further.”

With Lehmann not providing any follow up information, Bayliss moved on as he felt there was no bad blood between his side and Australia.

“Well I didn’t get a response. I just left it with Darren to sort out one way or the other,” he said. “I didn’t hear any response, but everything was dealt with then.

“I’m not going to make too much of it. It was bloody three years ago, let’s move on. [Cricket Australia] can do what they like I suppose – everyone has sort of forgotten about it and moved on since then. I don’t see it as any real big deal.

“It was a hard-fought series…you’re not party to what goes on out on the field and certainly nothing else was reported or anything through that series so we just left it at that.”