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England opener Alex Hales who was a driving force behind winning England the T20 World Cup has come under fire after a historic social media post from 2009 resurfaced. The English opener has been rebuked by the ECB (England Cricket Board) on Wednesday for a seemingly racist and discriminatory photo of him in blackface which emerged 12 months ago.
Hales who has had his career rekindled after being in the wilderness for so long admitted a breach of directive 3.3 which mentions, '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.'
But the Cricket Discipline Commission took notice of the fact that Hales, 33, himself did not post the objectionable photograph on social media and had even gone the extra mile by trying his utmost to prevent its appearance on social media in both 2015 and 2017.
Last November when the photo came to light, he issued an apology through a video on Instagram for any offence caused by the photo. He also explained the reason for the blackface as it was done up for a fancy dress party and he had decided to dress up as his favourite musician rapper Tupac.
Hales said, “The theme was musicians and Tupac is, was and always will be my favourite musician, so I went as him. I obviously realise that this is incredibly disrespectful and I want to apologise for all the offence this has no doubt caused.”
In the apology he said, that he did a lot of silly things as a teenager and when he was in his early 20s but has matured now having played cricket all over the world with people from different ethnicities and culture.
"It was incredibly reckless and foolish on my behalf, so I want to apologise for that, apologise to the club for the embarrassment it would have caused them. I guess my twenties was full of mistakes like that, reckless mistakes off the field that cost me, let down family, let down team-mates, let down friends, close relationships I had during my twenties.
"Some of those decisions I'll regret for the rest of my life, and the last few years being away from the spotlight a little bit has given me a chance to try and better myself as a human, keep getting better at cricket, but getting better off the field as well,” he further added.
In an identical case, former Warwickshire and Leicestershire all-rounder Ateeq Javid also had been slapped down for making anti-semetic comments in a Facebook exchange that also became public knowledge a year ago.
