After Tom Banton (Brisbane Heat) and Tom Curran (Sydney Sixers), Alex Hales became the third English player to be part of the BBL bandwagon, with several more English players expected to join the trio. Both Banton and Curran had multi-year contracts, but Hales re-signed a one-year deal with Sydney Thunder after a very good season with them, and became the first international to enter into a new BBL agreement in the midst of the Covid-19 Pandemic.