Alex Hales, picked as a fast bowler, became England's first T20 centurion
At sixteen, Alex Hales walked out at Lord's in a Cricket Idol tournament and plundered 55 from one over: eight sixes, a four and three no-balls. The organisers had actually chosen him for his fast bowling. That mismatch between billing and outcome would echo through a career built on short-format hitting.
Born in Hillingdon on 3 January 1989, Hales went to Westbrook Hay School and then Chesham High School in Buckinghamshire. Sport ran in the family. His father Gary set local batting marks, including an unbeaten 321 for Gerrards Cross against Chalfont St Peter in a limited-overs league game, and grandfather Dennis once dragged Rod Laver to a fifth set at Wimbledon.
After Minor Counties outings for Buckinghamshire in 2006 and a season with MCC Young Cricketers, he trialled at Nottinghamshire in 2007 and made 218 in only his second game, then a hundred and two scores of 95. A two-year contract followed. His first-class debut came against Somerset in September 2008, and a July 2011 championship innings of 184 prompted ESPNcricinfo to suggest the national selectors ought to be watching.
His England bow, a two-ball duck against India, was an unpromising start. Better days arrived fast. On 24 June 2012 he was man of the match as England completed their highest successful T20 international chase, though he fell for 99 to a Rampaul yorker; nobody else has been out on that score in the format. Two years later at the 2014 World Twenty20 he hit 116 not out against Sri Lanka, the first T20I hundred by an Englishman, and shared a record third-wicket stand of 152 with Eoin Morgan.
Longer formats proved harder. His one-day international debut came against India in August 2014, and his first Test followed against South Africa in December 2015, where BBC commentator Jonathan Agnew argued that his habit of planting the front foot on middle stump and playing well away from his body might pass in white-ball games with no slips but not in Tests. The South African quicks duly exposed it. Yet in the one-dayers that followed he struck four straight fifties plus a century to be named player of the series. Domestically he became a Trent Rockets local icon when The Hundred launched in October 2019, playing its first four seasons before stepping away in 2025 over ECB rules that would curb his overseas T20 work in summer.
Source: Alex Hales
