Alex Hales rebuked by the Cricket disciplinary commission for old 'blackface' picture

Alex Hales (Source: Twitter)

When England beat India by 10 wickets in the semi-final of the just concluded 20-20 World Cup semi-final in Australia, one name which made everyone’s heads roll was Alex Hales who scored an unbeaten 86 off 47 balls with four fours and seven sixes. He also built an unbeaten partnership of 170 with his skipper Jos Buttler.

Now, hard times have again knocked on Alex Hales door as he has been pulled up by the Central Discipline Commission over an old picture of him wearing a blackface which was put out in a national newspaper last year. Incidentally, Hales had given an apology in public when the image was published by the sun.

According to Sky Sports, the image was taken in 2009 when the batter was 20 years old at a party which was held during the New Year party. According to ESPNCricinfo, when the investigation was taking place, Hales raised the question of"repeated publication of these old matters", but adjudicator Chris Tickle ruled "the interests of transparency should prevail".

Last year in August, Hales had charges which were pressed against him with breaching directive 3.3 of the English Cricket Board which states "No such person may conduct himself in a manner or do any act or omission which may be prejudicial to the interests of cricket or which may bring the game of cricket or any cricketer or group of cricketers into disrepute.''

The charge was accepted by Hales and he conveyed to the CDC that he undertook all steps possible to ensure that the photo is not available on any of his accounts on social media in 2015 and 2017.

As per the findings of the CDC, they said that their orders were not properly followed by Hales which related mainly to the 2017 street fight which happened in Bristol should be taken into account as an aggregating factor, but, Tickle suggested strongly against it.

Alex Hales also tested positive for recreational drugs

"Neither of those breaches related to discriminatory conduct," he wrote. "They were wholly dissimilar. Further, they occurred some eight years after the breach in this case. It would be different if it were a case of repeat offending, of Hales not having learnt his lesson. At the material time - 2009 - he had a clean record. This was his first offence and it is appropriate to treat it as such."

He was also warned by his County Nottinghamshire according to a CDC report. "I have taken this into account but consider that the interests of transparency should prevail," Tickle wrote. "I direct that this decision should be published so as to emphasise that such posting on social media, however historical, will not be tolerated," he added.

Sky Sports said that before he earned a recall to the England national side and played the series against Pakistan and also the 20-20 World Cup, he was sidelined from the ODI squad in the build-up to the 2019 World Cup because he tested positive for recreational drugs and also it led to strained relations with Eoin Morgan the former England captain.