Alex Hales      

When Alex Hales signed for Nottinghamshire in 2008, MCC head coach Clive Radley said he "is a natural timer of a ball" and that skill has come to the fore in recent seasons as he battled tough batting conditions at Trent Bridge to become one of Nottinghamshire's key batsmen across all formats and has made his name for England in Twenty20.

At 6 foot 5' ins, Hales is an aggressive top-order batsman whose limited-overs form earned him an England Twenty20 debut in 2011, to which he responded after a debut duck against India by scoring an unbeaten 62 off 48 balls as England beat West Indies at the Oval. In his first Twenty20 international of 2012, against West Indies again, he failed by one run to become the first batsman to score a century for England in the short format on his home ground of Trent Bridge, in June. He went on to score 124 runs in five innings at the World T20 as England failed to qualify for the semi-fianls.

Hales top-scored for Nottinghamshire in the 2011 Friends Life t20 with 544 runs at 34 and a strike-rate of 146. In four-day cricket he also progressed well, earning his county cap after scoring 184 against Somerset at Trent Bridge on his way to topping 1,000 first-class runs in the season for the first time, despite missing almost seven weeks of the campaign with a broken jaw. He added 857 first-class runs in 2012, including two centuries in August.

His reputation in T20 cricket grew and he earned a late deal with Melbourne Renegades for two matches of the 2012/13 Big Bash. His debut brought a brutal 89 in just 52 balls at the SCG.

Sporting talent is in his genes, as his grandfather once took Rod Laver to five sets at Wimbledon.
ESPNcricinfo staff