England’s white-ball captain Eoin Morgan has made it clear that opener Alex Hales has to rebuild the trust with the team and “that takes a considerable amount of time” if he wishes to play for his country again.
Hales has been out of England's side since he was reportedly handed a 21-day ban for what was described as an "off-field incident" resulting in he had to miss out on England's triumphant Cricket World Cup 2019 campaign on home soil last year.
However, Hales has been in sparkling form with the bat, scoring 568 runs in 16 T20s for Sydney Thunder in the ongoing ninth edition of the Big Bash League (BBL) 2019-20 in Australia.
Well, Morgan insisted that Hales’ England career has not over yet but he needs to repair a "breakdown in trust" with the team to be back in contention for the England selection. He was speaking about the same ahead of the first ODI against South Africa in Cape Town on Tuesday, saying Hales can “absolutely” make an international comeback.
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Morgan told media, “Alex is in fantastic form for Sydney Thunder at the moment but his form has never been a question about him coming back into the squad. What happened prior to the World Cup last summer was a complete breakdown in trust between Alex and the team.”
The skipper further stressed, “The way back in for Alex is to try and rebuild that trust and that takes a considerable amount of time. We are at that time at the moment.”
Meanwhile, Tom Banton, Saqib Mahmood, and Matt Parkinson are likely to make their ODI debuts in the first ODI the three-match series against South Africa with Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes resting and Morgan urged all to grab the opportunity with both hands.
He explained, “I think we use ODIs as a great opportunity to build strength in depth throughout our squad. This series, as a starting point, will see guys come in and make their debuts and give people opportunities to stake a claim for positions that have been cemented for some time now.”
Morgan signed off by saying, “One of our strengths going into the last World Cup was competition for places and guys in those positions becoming not just very good England players but world-class international players.”
(With Sportstar Inputs)
