‘Door is still open’ – Eoin Morgan wants Alex Hales to rebuild trust for England return

Eoin Morgan, the England ODI and T20I skipper, was clear cut in saying that Alex Hales has to gain back the trust in order to make a comeback for the national team. Before the 2019 World Cup, Hales was found guilty after failing a second recreational drug test. The incident could easy have turned detrimental to the Brits’ preparation for the mega event, but luckily they didn’t lose momentum.

However, Morgan wasn’t happy with Hales by any stretch of the imagination. The southpaw said that Hales’ actions showed a “complete disregard” for the team’s values. From there on, right hander hasn’t played any cricket for the Three Lions.

What happened was actually harmful to the environment, says Eoin Morgan

“In terms of what that looks like, practically, it’s human nature, it’s about developing trust. 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, Morgan was quoted as saying at the launch of the Abu Dhabi T10 on Monday, May 4, reported by Cricbuzz.

“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,” he stated.

“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,” Morgan added.

Despite not donning the national colours, Hales continued playing across the globe. To start with, he played for the Barbados Tridents in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) followed by the Sydney Thunder in the Big Bash League (BBL). He was in riveting form in the Pakistan Super League (PSL) as well, representing the Karachi Kings, led by Imad Wasim.

On the back of his performances, he would have been expecting to make a comeback for the 2020 T20 World Cup in Australia. Having scored over 13,000 runs in 433 matches, Hales is still among the best limited-overs batsman in England.