When it comes to what Alex Hales is thinking or feeling, mind-reading skills are seldom required. Three summers have passed since that afternoon at Trent Bridge, when he fell one run short of what would have been England’s first Twenty 20 century, against West Indies. Yet the sight of him first sinking to his knees, and then boring a hole in the ground as he took what seemed like several lifetimes to leave the field remains one of the enduring cricketing images of recent times.
Sadly for him, the picture looked much the same on day one of England third’s Test against Pakistan, when he nudged a ball from Sohail Khan to wicket-keeper Sarfraz Ahmed and began his latest long trudge back to the dressing room.
County and country team-mate Stuart Broad commented he had never seen anyone “so gutted to get out for 99” and those who had watched Hales’ match-winning knock shared in his happy unhappiness knowing England had unearthed a one-day diamond.
This week in Birmingham, as he departed for 17 at 36 for one inside the first hour of England’s first innings, there was no such comfort for them, for Hales or his supporters.
Even those who maintain Hales can be the reliable opening partner for which Alastair Cook has been searching since the retirement of Andrew Strauss knew that he had come to the crease in dire need of an innings to justify continuing faith in that idea.
Instead, following scores of six and 16 in the first Test of the current Investec series at Lord’s and ten and 24 in the second at Old Trafford, he left it with his fifth low score out of five, bringing his total to 73 runs in five at an average of 14.6. And, as he let those figures tap-dance a hole in his head, his expression confirmed he knows those figures simply do not add up, especially in a side that is becoming dangerously reliant on the form of two batsmen: Cook and Joe Root.
Whether from relief or genuine expectation, Cook had given his latest partner his fulsome support at the end of England’s 2-0 victory over Sri Lanka, to which Hales had contributed scores of 86, 83 and 94.
“Alex Hales,” announced the skipper, “…has tightened up his game from South Africa and probably learnt about Test cricket.
“It’s great when you see someone who doesn’t quite nail it in the first four games, but goes away and shows hunger and desire. He has worked on his game away from the spotlight and come back and understands a lot more about how Test cricket works. He has made some really big strides.
“You don’t know what the future holds, but he has got something about him.”
Whoever writes the player profiles in the official ECB programme offered a similarly upbeat assessment, saying: “After initial struggles on the winter tour to South Africa, showed he has the ability to be Cook’s long-term partner….”
The trouble is that runs against an anaemic Sri Lankan attack are one thing, a distinct lack of them against the superior quality at the disposal of Hashim Amla & AB de Villiers as well as Misbah-Ul-Haq is quite another and with more of the same coming up between now and the next Ashes battle which is now a mere 18 months away, Hales may have, at best, three more chances to show he must be persevered with, and, at worst, just one.
His dismissals against Pakistan have followed a now familiar pattern. At Lord’s he was twice caught behind playing away from his body at balls he might have left alone, and in Manchester once again his footwork was all at sea.
Granted he was undone by a couple of beautiful deliveries from Sohail, but his latest was the result of another tentative prod-cum-drive to a delivery outside off-stump, the very next ball after playing and missing in identical fashion.
Hales is fully aware of his technical weaknesses. Indeed, anyone passing by the England nets on their way to the match on Wednesday morning would have seen him, no more than an hour prior to the start of play, working the problems over and over again with batting coach Mark Ramprakash and his dog-thrower.
While it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that he will overcome them in time, at the moment that outcome looks like it would represent a major triumph for all concerned. Those who always had him down as a one-day specialist are already preparing themselves for an orgy of smugness.
But, if not Hales, who?
Tom Abell, of Somerset, has his admirers, not least his opening partner Marcus Trescothick and former England coach Andy Flower, and he returned to form recently with a brilliant ton in the Royal London Cup against Sussex. But he has had a stop-start season, disrupted also by a back problem, and though his century against Warwickshire in early May was impressive, so far it is his only one in first-class cricket this summer.
By bringing back Nick Compton and Gary Ballance this year, with varying degrees of success, England have shown they are not averse to giving discarded players a second chance, which brings both Sam Robson of Middlesex and Yorkshire’s Adam Lyth, two batsmen who, unlike Hales, do at least know what it takes to score a Test hundred, the latter to be an Ashes winner.
Daniel Bell-Drummond, Ben Duckett… there is no shortage of left-field calls, but perhaps the most interesting would be Jason Roy, not least because it would force the ODI and T20 star to address the issue raised by assistant coach Paul Farbrace over whether he actually “wants” to play Test cricket. And, should the selectors feel another Hales failure means a change must be made, what better place to ask that question and have it answered than the Oval, Roy’s Surrey home and the venue for the final match of the series?
Every picture tells a story, in Hales’ case very often a whole chapter. If the look on his face at the end of his second innings in Birmingham is anything like the one he wore at the end of the first it may well be time to close the book.
This piece originally featured in The Cricket Paper, Friday August 5 2016
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