Friendless Mate, Bodyline Challenge And the Aggressor in Alex Hales

Middlesex-born English cricketer Alex Hales gets picked in the fantasy cricket league for his explosive batting. But the 29-year-old started off his tryst with the game as a tall, aggressive bowler. He had also taken the bodyline challenge for fun.

The right-hand batsman Hales has 2000-plus One-day International runs at an average of 36.69 and at a strike rate of 95.00. But about a decade and a half back, a young Hales was rejected at Hertfordshire’s cricket trial for bowling with too much aggression, as he was in the contention for a bowler’s slot.

A lot has changed since then but the one thing that remained intact is the aggression, which he has channeled for his own good.

Hales and his antics:

“Up until I was maybe 15-16, I was tall, probably 6’1, 6’2, so I used to bowl, bat 6-7 and try and slog it,” Hales says. “Now I open and try to slog it and don’t bowl,” he laughs while recollecting his memories with Cricbuzz.

Bowling deadly bouncers wasn’t the only feat the Englishman achieved. An idle Hales once left his mate ‘friendless’ on Facebook, all thanks to his antics.

“I sat there, watched a film and then deleted every single one of his friends, one by one,” he said.

Hales has played a significant role for England while reminiscing about his old days.

“He had built up his Facebook for 10 years and I deleted them all. It took me about an hour and a half, my hand was cooked by the end of it, but it was worth it because he wanted to kill me!” said the only centurion for England in Twenty20 International cricket.

The destructive batsman replaced David Warner in the IPL for Sunrisers Hyderabad. (SRH) Hales bagged base price INR 1 crore and started the tournament with back-to-back scores of 45.

Sunrisers are currently leading the charts and Alex Hales is expected to bring out his best in the best way possible.