For Moeen Ali, a devout Muslim, turning down the big bucks of the Indian Premier League for a religious pilgrimage was a no-brainer. "We've played so much cricket lately," he says, tugging at his beard periodically as he talks. "I'd love to go and play [the IPL] at some point, but I've got to manage my own body and schedule. It's not all about the money. Sometimes you have to think about other things. "I've got a family. My parents are getting older, and I want to spend time with them too. It's not always easy to get that downtime, and when you're always on the road it can be mentally tiring, and you get fatigued. There's more to life than cricket."
This will be Moeen's second trip to Mecca. It will be a shorter, more relaxed visit, known as the umrah. When he was 22, he did the hajj, the mandatory pilgrimage that all Muslims must undertake if they are financially and physically capable. "It's one of the five pillars of Islam," Moeen explains. "You have to go once in your life."
So Moeen flew to Saudi Arabia and joined millions of his fellow pilgrims, slowly circling the Ka'aba, the giant stone block at the centre of the holy site. But Moeen's long winter is not quite at an end yet. On Thursday England and India will meet in the final Twenty20 game, the last of their 11 engagements across all formats, with the series poised at one apiece. No rest for the wicket-takers.
Moeen is one of a handful of players who has been there for the lot: the crushing 4-0 defeat in the Test series, the traumatic first two one-day internationals when England scored 350 and lost both times, and finally the fleeting resurgence that has injected a little of the pride back into English cricket. Moeen has been at the vanguard of England's fightback, going for less than a run a ball in each of their last three matches. "I feel like I'm getting better as a one-day and T20 spinner," he says.
"Even at the back of the ODIs, I felt good. I didn't pick up any wickets, but I felt I bowled quite tight. I'm not a mystery spinner like Adil Rashid, with a lot of skill. You're just trying to do one basic thing: keep it as tight as you can and build pressure."
The Bangalore surface is expected to be another slow, testing track - during last year's world T20, no team managed to break 160 on it. But England's confidence remains high after their narrow defeat in Nagpur on Sunday. "We should have won that comfortably," Moeen insists. "It's not easy coming to India against this batting line-up and restricting them twice to 150. If we do the same thing, we'll beat them."
England have certainly earned their break. But before that, they will want to seal the series, to leave India with something at least. And so Moeen and his team-mates prepare to go again: one more push.
