Ben Stokes gave his blessing to Alex Hales’ recall to the England T20 squad after three and a half years in the international wilderness.
Hales has not been a part of any England squad since 2019 after failing a second recreational drugs test on the eve of the World Cup. At the time, captain Eoin Morgan said that Hales had shown a complete disregard to the team’s values and had caused ‘trust issues’ with him and the rest of the team.
However with Morgan now retired from international cricket, the decision to recall Hales lay with new managing director Rob Key and white ball skipper Jos Buttler.
And Buttler sought Stokes’ opinion as one of the senior players who may have still had ‘trust issues’ with Hales, having been left in a police cell in Bristol the morning after the night before in 2017 while his teammate left to play golf without telling anyone what had happened.
Stokes said: “I think at the end of the day, everyone's goal is to win that World Cup for England. My goal, Alex's goal and everyone else who's part of that squad’s goal is to win that World Cup.
“And it's an injury that presents an opportunity to someone else. Alex is definitely one of the best T20 players in the world. And unfortunately with what happened with Jonny we had to call another player up and know Alex is definitely one of the guys that bowlers just don't want to be bowling at in the T20 format.
“I’ve not been in the leadership capacity with the white ball group for however long. I've obviously been resting and stuff like that. But when it comes down to the big moments in games and World Cup games, knockout games, you want your best players there to be taking that pressure on and he certainly is one of those.”
Hales’ ability to play T20 cricket at the highest level has never been in doubt. He is one of the most sought after players on the T20 franchise circuit and has played regularly with several members of the England team.
He has just finished a title winning tournament with the Trent Rockets scoring 259 runs at a strike rate of 152 alongside Dawid Malan so is in good form.
But as much as Stokes will value Hales’ contributions with the bat, it is clear their relationship remains purely professional.
In his recent documentary ‘Phoenix from the Ashes’ Stokes refers to Hales as ‘my friend at the time.’ And when asked whether their relationship had improved Stokes gave a pointed answer: “We've both got the same goal to win World Cups.”
