Alex Hales: England batter announces retirement from international cricket with immediate effect

Alex Hales, the explosive and moody opening batsman for England, said on Friday that he was ending international cricket immediately. Hales made his international debut in a T20I against India in Manchester in August 2011.

He played for England in 11 Tests, 70 ODIs, and 75 T20Is. Hales's last important international performance was also against India.

It was a brutal, unbeaten 86 off 47 balls (4 fours and 7 sixes) in the semifinal of the T20 World Cup in Australia in 2022. Hales and Jos Buttler, who didn't get out until he was 80, helped England beat Australia by 10 wickets when they were trying to reach 169.

Hales wrote on his Instagram account, "Just a note to say that I've decided to stop playing international cricket."

"It has been an incredible honour to serve my country 156 times in all three formats. I've made memories and friendships that will last a lifetime, but I think it's time for me to move on," he wrote.

Hales's last game for England was in the T20 World Cup 2022 final against Pakistan in Melbourne. He said, "During my time in an England shirt, I've been through some of the best and worst times of my life.

It's been an amazing ride, and I'm happy that my last game for England was a World Cup final win." Hales didn't help England win the World Cup in 2019 because team captain Eoin Morgan and other top players decided he didn't have a role to play while he was serving a 21-day ban for failing a second recreational drugs test.

But Hales was one of the most important parts of England's comeback in white-ball cricket. In fact, he hit 147 off of 92 balls (16 fours and 5 sixes) when England beat Australia in the ODI at Nottingham in 2018. This was the second best ODI score ever.

In 70 ODIs, Hales got 2,419 runs at an average of 37.79, with six centuries and 14 fifties. In 75 T20Is, he scored 2,074 runs at an average of 30.95, with one hundred and 12 half-hundreds. In 11 Tests, he could only score 573 runs at a rate of 27.28, with only five fifties.