The tale of Alex Hales – and we are only at the beginning of it still – is both modern and recognisable. When he first emerged on the international radar, back in 2011, it was easy to put him into that little box cricket reserves, derisively, for Twenty20 specialists.
In only his fifth Twenty20 international, he fell a run short of becoming the first Englishman to score an international hundred in the format. He would eventually do just that, but in the interim, his own ambition seemed to confuse him.
He wanted to be more than just a single-format specialist, but as he admitted in a recent interview with ESPNcricinfo, in those early forays the philosophy was simple: “I tried to play every shot in the book”.
England believed that as well, not picking him for the 50-over game until three years after his Twenty20 debut. He could hit but could he build an innings they wondered.
He went back and worked on expanding his game by tightening it up. For a while it did not work, but eventually it began to bear fruit and there could have been no better evidence of his development than his first ODI hundred on Friday.
For much of the opening skirmishes, Jason Roy was the man who went at Pakistan. Hales talks now of giving himself enough time to get in, confident in the knowledge that once he is in, his natural game can take over.
The first statement of intent came only in the fifth over, a resounding front foot pull off Mohammad Irfan in front of square. Another five overs later, he swept Yasir Shah for a boundary and if in the misfield it had an element of fortune, he bettered it in the same over with a delicious cover drive.
Against Shah, in particular, he was especially proactive, taking 36 runs off the 28 balls he faced from him. That included two sixes, one towering over midwicket and one looping straight over but both equally authoritative. That was part of a bigger pattern of comfort against spin: he scored 74 of his runs against Pakistan’s three spinners, from just 64 balls.
It is on this kind of realisation that transformations occur. Hales rightly calculated he did not need to take any risks against the pacemen; indeed Irfan troubled him throughout, including one over in which he beat him outside off five balls in a row.
But unfazed, he went about picking up runs against them where and when he could. In all, nearly half of his 109 came in singles, not an area of the field left uncovered.
If it did not stir the senses, it was smart and in the long run, maybe portentous. Inevitably now there will be talk of whether or not he can make the ultimate transformation: that to a Test opener. England are still looking, three years after the retirement of Andrew Strauss, for a partner for Alastair Cook.
Hales must have been pretty close to selection for the Test XI in the UAE and hindsight is a beautiful thing, but how might he have gone in place of Moeen Ali in the Tests? Different format, different sport almost but could England have done with some of that gusto against spin in the Tests?
In any case, the day when he becomes an England Test player cannot be too far away. He made over a thousand first-class runs this season, averaging over 50 for the first time in a full season.
It could come in South Africa next month and though Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander and Morne Morkel will be as tough a test as there is, how surprised should we all be if he passes it?
Friday, after all, was also the day when David Warner hit his first Test double hundred. Remember what the world thought he was when he first arrived?
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
Follow us on Twitter at NatSportUAE
