Yesterday we raved about how good 18 year old Ben Stokes of Durham was after watching his second successive championship century against Kent in the championship match being screened live on Sky. We even predicted that he would play for England before too long as he is clearly a special talent. More of him in our next post.
And like a London Bus, future England players seem to come along in twos. Our next wild prediction is that Alex Hales of Nottinghamshire will also play for England. We at the Reverse Sweep have been singing Hales’ praises ever since we saw him blast a superlative 150 not out off only 102 balls in a Pro 40 match against Worcestershire last summer.
He also got into the Notts championship side towards the end of the 2009 season and did well. We named Hales as one of our XI of youngsters to watch in world cricket in 2010 at the start of this year. And we also included him in our 12 cricketers to watch in the 2010 county season as well.
So we were slightly aghast when Hales failed to make the Notts championship side at the start of the season. In fairness, Notts have a strong squad and also had Hashim Amla for their first few games. But it was disappointing that Bilal Shafayat and Neil Edwards were picked in preference to Hales.
But with Amla off to the Caribbean to tour with South Africa and Mark Wagh injured, Hales came into the side for the current match with Hampshire and has fully justified our faith by scoring his maiden championship ton. It wasn't just any hundred either as he dug his side out of a bit of trouble before helping set Hampshire a challenging target of 281 to win.
If Hales kicks on, the tall right-hander could prove a suitable successor to Marcus Trescothick at the top of the
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