WOAKES: I’D WELCOME HALES BACK
Cricket’s clean start:
CHRIS WOAKES believes Alex Hales has been punished enough for his mistakes and he would welcome him back inside the England bubble.
England name a white-ball squad next week for the internationals behind closed doors this summer.
And, although captain Eoin Morgan said last month that opening batsman Hales still has work to do to repair trust, Woakes would be happy to see him back.
Woakes said: “I’m a believer that people serve their time. If they have gone away and worked on their weaknesses, they should be allowed a second chance.
“He’s gone through a tough time being left out of the World Cup, and going on to see that team lift the trophy must have been difficult for him.
“Alex is a world-class player. While I don’t know 100 per cent what will happen, I’d be happy to see Alex back.”
Hales was banished to the international wilderness a month before last year’s World Cup after testing positive for recreational drugs for a second time.
Morgan said at the time Hales had shown a “complete disregard” for his teammates. But if the Notts batsman has made genuine progress then his talents with the bat, particularly in T20, might be hard to ignore, even for Morgan.
England’s bowlers are returning to one-on-one net sessions. Jofra Archer was back at Hove yesterday, and Ben Stokes and Mark Wood will train at Durham today. Woakes bowled five overs for the first time in two months at Edgbaston on Thursday.
He said he was “sore” but delighted to be back. He checked his temperature before leaving home, followed routes laid down in and out of the ground and stayed isolated throughout.
He said: “It’s a window on the summer. It gave an inkling about how strict we will have to be – how it can work well and safely.
“We will get more of an idea when we start practising more as a team and have more people training at an area of a venue. There are no changing rooms involved at the moment but when we get to games that will change.
“Match mode will look a lot different.”