London [UK]: England limited-overs captain has said a complete breakdown of trust between Alex Hales and his England team-mates led to Hales’ omission from the World Cup squad.
“We’ve been working extremely hard over the last 18 months to try and build that team culture and established values that we could adhere to,” ESPN Cricinfo quoted Morgan as saying on Thursday.
“But with this Alex has clearly demonstrated a lack of respect for these values, and there has been a complete breakdown of trust between the team and Alex. Out of that meeting, everybody agreed that the best decision was for Alex to be de-selected,” he added.
Morgan’s words come after Hales was omitted from the World Cup squad after a second failed drugs test. The player was handed a 21-day ban after failing the drugs test and later he was omitted from the World Cup squad.
The captain said that the decision was reached after consultation with the six most experienced members in the team.
“We’ve been around a very long time. We’ve been through thick and thin. And, as a group, culture is extremely important to us. And that resounding theme came out of that meeting, and we felt that moving forward, it would actually have quite a significant contribution, particularly going into the World Cup and Ashes year,” Morgan said.
“We will need at least 15 men to win that World Cup. For whatever way Alex would have dealt with it, the other 14 people would have been dragged down and that would have been quite a weight taken forward, and that didn’t outweigh his performance,” he added.
Morgan also believes that by dropping Hales from the squad, the selectors have not cast him adrift and he believes that dropping him was the decision that the team could have taken.
“I don’t think we have cast him adrift… To deselect him we felt was the best decision simply because he did not adhere to everything that we have been working towards for a very long time,” Morgan said.
The 32-year-old Morgan also said that he spoke to the coach Trevor Bayliss and other players of the team at depth to discuss Hales’ situation.
“I spoke to the coach [Trevor Bayliss] at depth,” Morgan said. “I spoke to all of our senior players – I actually called the meeting with the senior players to discuss moving forward, how it would affect the team, and the team culture,” Morgan said.
England takes on Ireland in a one-off ODI on May 3 and the team will start their World Cup campaign against South Africa on May 30.
[source_without_link]ANI[/source_without_link]