Alex Hales needs to develop trust among his teammates and the Board to return to the team: Eoin Morgan

Eoin Morgan, England’s white ball captain has said Alex Hales can return to International Cricket if he gains back the trust of the management and players which was lost after his second failed test for recreational drugs right before the World Cup last summer. At the time, it was a significant story which threatened to […]
 
?width=963&height=541&resizemode=4
Alex Hales needs to develop trust among his teammates and the Board to return to the team: Eoin Morgan

Eoin Morgan, England’s white ball captain has said Alex Hales can return to International Cricket if he gains back the trust of the management and players which was lost after his second failed test for recreational drugs right before the World Cup last summer.
At the time, it was a significant story which threatened to derail England’s preparations for a tournament they had spent four years planning. Morgan, who found out about the failed test through the media, has previously spoken about how he felt particularly let down by Hales. At the time, Morgan said Hales’ actions showed a “complete disregard” for the team’s values. The 31 year-old Nottinghamshire batsman has not played for England in any format since.

Hales was targeting a return to the England squad ahead of the T20 WC in Australia later this year. In terms of ability and form, there is little doubt that Hales remains one of the best T20 batsmen England have at the moment. But for Morgan, the breakdown in trust he says occurred last summer still needs to be rebuilt.

ALSO READ: We must make the most of the limited opportunities we get ahead of the T20 World Cup: Eoin Morgan

“In terms of what that looks like, practically, it’s human nature, it’s about developing trust,” Morgan said at the launch of the Abu Dhabi T10 on Monday. “I don’t think you can put a time limit on gaining back that trust, and that’s not just with me, that’s with every member of the squad, the backroom staff, the selectors. And that does take time. We’re in May, so it’s 11 months ago that the incident happened with Alex, so it’s actually not that long ago that it happened. What happened was actually quite considerably harmful to the environment, which obviously led to the breakdown in trust between Alex and our players, so to say, how long that will take to regain, we don’t know, but certainly the door is still open for that trust to be built back up.”
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there are still doubts as to when the likes of Hales and Morgan will resume their careers. Whether the T20 WC takes place this year remains to be seen, for example, but given the progress towards a resumption made by some sports in Europe, such as football, Morgan is more hopeful now than he was a couple of weeks ago that there might be some cricket in England this summer after all.
The England captain said, “For the last month, everybody has struggled to get a sense of what’s possible and what might or might not happen, but the news in the last week has been more positive about sport returning than it has been in the previous three weeks. There was a stage when the idea of playing any sport over the next four or five months seemed impossible, but so long as the options given are government-approved, it seems a lot more likely that there might be some cricket. I’ve not given up yet!”

Alex Hales needs to develop trust among his teammates and the Board to return to the team: Eoin Morgan