Alex Hales has announced his full retirement from international cricket, ending an England career than ran from 2011 until last year.
Hales’ retirement, aged 34, means that his final England’s game will be last year’s T20 World Cup final against Pakistan at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, when England won by five wickets. While he only made one in the final, he played a crucial role in England’s World Cup triumph, including 86 not out when England crushed India by 10 wickets in the semi-final.
The sequence ensured that Hales, who was recalled for the competition after Jonny Bairstow’s broken leg suffered while playing golf, retires as a World Cup winner. He had been a central part of England’s squad for the 2019 World Cup before being dropped on the eve of the competition for failing a recreational drugs test.
Despite stellar form on the T20 franchise circuit, Hales spent the next three years outside the England side. Eoin Morgan, England’s white-ball captain until 2022, said that Hales’ actions amounted to “a complete breakdown in trust”. Hales had to wait until Jos Buttler succeeded Morgan as skipper before winning a recall.
Overall Hales played 156 times for England across all three formats, including 11 Test matches in 2015 and 2016. The big-hitting opener played a vital role in the side’s limited-overs transformation after 2015. He hit 171, briefly settling a new England ODI record, against Pakistan in 2016 and also scored 147 against Australia in 2018, when England made 481 for six. Both innings were at Trent Bridge, his home ground.
Hales was not in England’s plans for the ODI World Cup this year but was still a strong contender to go to next year’s T20 World Cup, in West Indies and USA. His retirement frees him to play in more franchise cricket – although England now have a relaxed attitude to players missing bilateral games to play in overseas leagues. Will Jacks and Phil Salt are among the young England players who could come into contention at the top of the order in T20, while Harry Brook could also be an option to be used there.
“It has been an absolute privilege to have represented my country on 156 occasions across all three formats,” Hales said in a statement. “l’ve made some memories and some friendships to last a lifetime and I feel that now is the right time to move on.
“Throughout my time in an England shirt I’ve experienced some of the highest highs as well as some of the lowest lows. It’s been an incredible journey and I feel very content that my last game for England was winning a World Cup final.”
Wasted talent? Hales had the ultimate riposte to that foolish slur
By Tim Wigmore
In his last game as an England cricketer, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground last November, Alex Hales became a World Cup winner. The greatest testament to Hales’s talents is the sense that, had this moment not come, his career would have felt a little unfulfilled.
For all his deeds in international cricket – including a World Cup century against Sri Lanka in 2014 which remains arguably England’s finest T20 hundred, setting a new record England ODI score, and hitting 147 against Australia at Trent Bridge in 2018 – the focus on Hales often centred more on when he was not in the team than when he was. Until 2014, England did not pick Hales in their 50-over side when he was the No1-ranked T20 batsman in the world: an embodiment of their archaic thinking. The Bristol incident in 2017 cost him his automatic berth in the ODI side. The failed recreational drugs tests in 2019 cost him a place first in the World Cup; he remained ostracised for three wasted years.
Two months last autumn transformed Hales’s legacy. First, he was omitted from England’s T20 World Cup squad. But after Jonny Bairstow broke a leg in a golf accident, England recalled Hales, acknowledging that they could not be without his excellence as an opener and particular pedigree in Australia. When he was originally omitted, Hales phoned Rob Key, England’s managing director, to query the decision: it was a sign of his frustration at continuing to be overlooked, even if it had no bearing on him winning a recall.
Back in the side, Hales settled into an opening partnership with Jos Buttler. Though he scored a half-century on his international return, Hales’s form dwindled. But he, and England, knew that his recall would be defined by how he fared in the crunch stages of the World Cup.
Just like in 2019, an indifferent start left England needing to win their last four matches to win the World Cup. Three years earlier, Hales had been absent; now, he was among the most crucial figures in their run. His innings against New Zealand and Sri Lanka, when he made 52 and 47, showcased all the T20 prowess that Hales had accumulated in three years as a T20 specialist. He used his feet to create angles against New Zealand’s quicks – including launching Tim Southee back over his head for six. Recognising that England needed to be ascendant in their run chase against Sri Lanka before the spinners came on, Hales reached 42 from 19 balls in the Powerplay, attacking with selfless abandon.
It was a prelude to Hales’s perfect day. Before the semi-final against India in Adelaide, Hales shot one under par on the golf course. After India posted 168 at The Adelaide Oval, Hales walked off believing that India were “probably 20 or 30 short”.
By the time that Hales was done, India’s score looked altogether lighter. Hales and Buttler helped England cruise to 63 for none after the Powerplay. In the next over, Hales slog-swept Ravichandran Ashwin for six, targeting Adelaide’s short square boundaries. A pulled six in the next over, from Axar Patel, distilled that Hales would not rein himself in.
“Definitely not: not when you’re none down, you’re so well set, and you’ve got nice match-ups with Ashwin spinning it into you, with a fairly short square boundary,” he explained to me. “I’d be more annoyed at myself if I got out with a leading edge trying to nurdle a single; I play my best cricket when I’m looking to attack.”
These words could double as a description of England’s entire mantra in limited-overs cricket since 2015. And so, after his thundering 86 not out underpinned England’s 10-wicket victory over India, it was apt that a man who was once a pioneer would be granted the ultimate denouement. For any who would like to perceive Hales as a wasted talent, winning the World Cup in front of 80,000 people, including close family and friends, at the MCG, was the ultimate riposte.
Article courtesy of
Source link
