Alex Hales, England’s T20 World Cup winner, has been reprimanded by the Cricket Discipline Commission (CDC) of the ECB for a picture appearing to show the batter in “blackface”.
English newspaper The Sun shared pictures last year showing Hales at a student party dressed in the aforementioned “getup”.
Hales had questioned the need for “repeated publication of these old matters” during the CDC’s investigation but Chris Tickle, the adjudicator, ruled that “the interests of transparency should prevail”.
Hales and Ateeq Javid, a former Warwickshire and Leicestershire allrounder were then charged with breaching article 3.3 of the ECB directive 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.”
Javid was issued a reprimand over anti-semitic messages he exchanged with Azeem Rafiq on Facebook in 2011 while Rafiq has already been reprimanded for his involvement in the exchange last month.
Alex Hales, meanwhile, is no stranger to controversy with this “blackface” episode just a single constituent in a long list of incidents which almost derailed his career.
He was involved in the infamous Bristol street fight outside a nightclub in September 2017 before failing a drug test which resulted in him being booted from the team.
The 33-year-old’s story of redemption began with selection for the T20 World Cup in Australia and he managed to take his opportunity with both hands eventually being named one of the finalists for the “Player of the Tournament” award and being named in the “Team of the Tournament”.
