flipper wrote:As no doubt i've mentioned before, I was lucky enough to play against Dean Jones when he spend about half a season at nostell probably a year or two after that, he was ranked 4th in the world at the time, and was playing in the Leeds League, absolutely amazing to see up close, timing from a different planet.
Jones was, for me, the most talented of the young Aussie batsmen to emerge in the mid 80s, I even thought he was a better player than Steve and Mark Waugh. He was seen as more of a one day player but he had a superb technique and could concentrate for long periods, some of his Test innings were superb. As well as that famous Ashes innings against England at the SCG he played one of the most legendary innings in Aussie history with a double hundred in the Tied Test in India in sweltering heat when he had to be hospitalised for dehydration and put on a saline drip overnight in the middle of his innings. He also got a double century against the West Indies against a bowling attack of Marshall, Patterson, Ambrose and Walsh. Jones and Gavaskar are the only players to get double hundreds against the W Indies in their glory days of the 1980s.
But Jones mysteriously disappeared from the Aussie Test team in 1992 when he was in good form, and never got picked again. Yes he was controversial but plenty of other players were controversial not least Warne, and generally the Aussie selectors will pick an outstanding talent even if he is outspoken, but something made them cut all ties with Jones. Sarfraz Nawaz tried to implicate Jones in the match fixing scandal but Hansie Cronje said Jones was one of the players who had been offered significant amounts and turned it down because he wouldnt get involved.....its always intrigued me what went on behind the scenes to cut short his career...
