On Friday, August 4, batsman Alex Hales of England made his international cricket retirement announcement. Alex Hales participated in 156 appearances for England in all three formats and was a part of their successful T20 World Cup 2022 campaign in Australia. The 34-year-old expressed his joy at participating in his final international match, the World Cup final of 2022, and said that he would still play for Nottingham.
After retiring, the daring opening hitter will continue to play for franchise teams all across the world. On August 31, 2011, Hales made his debut in an international match during a T20I against India. He then represented his country in 11 Tests, 70 ODIs, and 75 T20Is, amassing 5066 runs across all formats.
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The Hillingdon-born batsman finished as England‘s second-highest run scorer during the T20 World Cup 2022 with 212 runs, a 42.40 average, a 147.22 strike rate, and two fifty-plus scores.
He was crucial to England’s comeback in ODIs after their disastrous 2015 ODI World Cup, in which they were eliminated in the first round. He had his fair share of scandals over his 11-year career, in addition to the highs he enjoyed on the cricket pitch.
In September 2017 a fight outside a bar in Bristol led to the 34-year-old’s suspension from the ODI team, which allowed Jason Roy to make a stunning comeback for the England team.
Alex Hales was not chosen for the ODI World Cup 2019.
He was also given a 21-day suspension in April 2019 after testing positive for using recreational drugs. Because of the incident, he was dropped from the provisional roster for the 2019 ODI World Cup. After that, the team would not be able to trust the then-England captain Eoin Morgan, and he was further neglected for the T20 World Cup in 2021.
However, Hales was finally chosen to replace the injured Jonny Bairstow in the England team prior to the T20 World Cup in 2022. The game’s first batter seized the chance and left the pitch as the “World Cup Champion.”