Date of birth – 3 January 1989 Hillingdon, Middlesex
Nottinghamshire First-Class Debut – 3 September 2008 v Somerset (Trent Bridge)
Acknowledged as one of the premier white ball batsmen in world cricket, Alex Hales enjoyed a record-breaking 2017 domestic season and will be looking for a repeat this time around.
The former MCC Young Cricketer had a meteoric rise through the ranks, after making his Nottinghamshire debut almost a decade ago.
England calls came, with T20 appearances in 2011 and he has been a regular in the ODI side since 2014.
Hales also played in 11 Tests between a Durban debut against South Africa on Boxing Day 2015 and a home series against Pakistan the following summer, scoring five half-centuries, with a best of 94.
His aggressive top-order stroke play has made Hales a much sought-after commodity in the world’s short-form competitions. The former ICC number one ranked T20 batsman has made regular appearances in Australia’s Big Bash tournament and remains the only England player to score a century in that format.
His 171, made at Trent Bridge against Pakistan in 2016, is also England’s highest individual ODI score.
For Nottinghamshire, Hales has scored almost 12,000 runs across the three formats and produced some of the most dynamic hitting ever seen, last season.
He registered the highest recorded score in a Lord’s final, when his unbeaten 187 helped the Outlaws to their Royal London One-Day Cup triumph. In the T20 Blast he blazed a century against Yorkshire and followed it with a 30-ball knock of 95 against Durham.
In red ball cricket, his run-a-ball innings of 218 at Derby last August could scarcely be bettered for the quality of the strokeplay.
Nottinghamshire supporters will be hoping there is more to come in 2018.