Alex Hales' Disrespect to Team Values Meant he had to Go - Eoin Morgan
Published - 02 May 2019, 10:58 PM | Updated - 23 Aug 2024, 12:00 AM
England captain Eoin Morgan has stated that Alex Hales had to leave the World Cup squad as he didn’t respect the team values which was built by the team in the last 18 months. Meanwhile, Alex Hales was dropped from England World Cup squad because he had taken recreational drugs. Subsequently, Morgan had a word with the team coach, Trevor Bayliss and also had a rendezvous with the senior players of the side.
Consequently, it was decided that Hales has done justice to the team values which was created by the team. Hence, Eoin Morgan and Co. came to a conclusion that it was in the best interest of the team that Hales is dropped from the World Cup squad.
Hales has let us down – Morgan.
Eoin Morgan said in pre-match conference, “I spoke to the coach [Trevor Bayliss] at depth,” Morgan said. “I spoke to all of our senior players – I actually called the meeting with the senior players to discuss moving forward, how it would affect the team, and the team culture.
“We’ve been working extremely hard over the last 18 months to try and build that team culture and established values that we could adhere to.
“But with this Alex has clearly demonstrated a lack of respect for these values, and there has been a complete breakdown of trust between the team and Alex. Out of that meeting, everybody agreed that the best decision was for Alex to be de-selected.”
The senior players who were involved in the team meeting were Joe Root, Moeen Ali, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and Chris Woakes. The England captain stated that the culture of the team is of the utmost importance to them.
Culture is important to us.
“We’ve been around a very long time,” he said. “We’ve been through thick and thin. And, as a group, culture is extremely important to us. And that resounding theme came out of that meeting, and we felt that moving forward, it would actually have quite a significant contribution, particularly going into the World Cup and Ashes year.”
England will play one-off ODI against Ireland in Dublin on 3rd May. Subsequently, the English team will begin their World Cup preparation with a five-match ODI series against Pakistan, with the first one taking place on 8th May. The hosts will begin their World Cup campaign against South Africa on 30th May.
Meanwhile, England has played some relentless cricket in the last four years and ended the annual year as the number one side. Thus, they are going to be one of the biggest contenders of the World Cup.
