England vs Pakistan: Alex Hales and James Vince drinking in last chance saloon while hundreds elude them

The two England batsmen are running out of time to prove that they belong at Test level

Hales walks off at Edgbaston after being dismissed by Sohail (Getty)

Has our demand-it-now-get-it-even-quicker age skewed our judgment of sportsmen and how long they should be allowed to prove themselves worthy of our national teams?

The question certainly arose at Edgbaston yesterday as Sohail Khan, himself a man seemingly resurrected from oblivion, made his way through England’s batting order, his five victims including Alex Hales and James Vince.

Although the series stands at one all with two to play, there are many who feel both Hales and Vince are in the last chance saloon, if not here then at the Oval in seven day’s time.

But what is that judgement based upon and has it been applied to a big enough sample to be relevant? Neither man has yet made a Test hundred or in Vince’s case, a fifty. If you bat in the top six, a Test century is the feat that seals the deal and confirms a batsman has arrived. Without it, acceptance is never complete and it can bear down on you like a hangover following a night out with Ian Botham.

Yet, how long should a player be given to prove himself? Often it depends on how the team are faring. Before the selectors communicated by Skype or email, players were tried and discarded with alarming regularity, especially in losing causes such as those against the mighty West Indies sides of the 1980s.

But then again, some players, like Steve Waugh, Mike Gatting and Graham Gooch, were given what seemed to be an inordinately long time to prove their worth - probably something to do with with the selectors backing their judgement that these were exceptional players who were bound to come good at some stage. Something in which they were proved right, though as one wag put it during Gatting’s long quest to prove himself - give a monkey a typewriter and enough time and it will produce a play worthy of Shakespeare.

Gatting played 53 Test innings, not all of them consecutively, before he scored his first Test hundred. Waugh took 41 knocks to do so while Gooch, after a false start where he was dropped after two Tests in 1975, played another 31 innings before reaching his first century. They all went on to lengthy careers, Gatting playing 73 Tests with Gooch and Waugh notching up well over a hundred apiece.

In comparison Hales has played 18 innings and Vince just eight, though that does not mean a view cannot be taken. Hales, who made 94, 86 and 83 in the recent series against Sri Lanka, was always going to be tested by Pakistan’s superior attack.

Hales hits past Azhar Ali of Pakistan during day one (Getty)

Good bowlers probe technique and Hales’s remains flawed despite efforts to construct his innings like a Test match batsman. Like Australia’s David Warner, Hales came to the longer format following success in white ball cricket. Unlike Warner, whose compact technique has allowed him to flourish in the five-day game, Hales, a much taller man, struggles with keeping his long levers under control.

On Wednesday, it was his habit of planting the front foot on middle and leg stump, which he does to free up scoring options on the off-side, that did for him.

Not only does his glitch allow the bowler more of the stumps to bowl at, it makes coping with any away movement off the seam a question of luck then judgment. So when Sohail fired it at middle and off, with a hint of away movement off the seam, he was forced to push at it with his bat away from his body. Unsurprisingly, he was squared up and an edge to the keeper followed.

Usually, on a seaming pitch, opening batsmen try to get outside the line of the ball so any away movement is countered. Obviously, they take their chances with the one that comes back in that might trap them lbw, but it is easier to adjust one’s stroke that way than away from the body. The question for the selectors can he learn new, good habits while dispensing with his bad ones?

Vince’s problems appear to be one of temperament not technique. Certainly his habit of getting caught behind or in the slips, playing big booming drives, suggests a mind jammed with unhelpful thoughts. In his latest knock here at Edgbaston, he looked to have conquered that impulse, leaving well and playing the cat and mouse that leads bowlers to stray in line so runs can be scored off the legs.

Yet just as it looked like this might be the innings that announced him as a Test batsman proper, a nibble outside the off-stump cut it short. He has the second innings here to make amends but unless he scores at least 80, he will discover, as will Hales while that hundred eludes him, whether the selectors consider him the next Gatting or Gooch. Or not.