Lives in Cricket No 4 - Ernie Jones

As it turned out the selection of the Fifth Test team created enormous controversy through the omission of one of Australia’s great bowlers (and then selector), Turner, who had captured 18 wickets at 19.38 during the series, including being one of the match-winners from the last game. In its report of the selection process the Melbourne Argus stated that each of the selectors had written down a team (including a twelfth man) and compared notes afterwards. Blackham and Giffen agreed throughout. Turner, in his list, had included himself, left Jack Lyons out, put McKibbin as substitute, but on coming to a decision had to give way to the other two. Giffen and Blackham declined to speak about their selections but admitted that the only three players at stake were Turner, Lyons and McKibbin. Turner, who was quite reasonably miffed, voted against Lyons because his recent batting form did not demand his retention, and for himself because he believed he had earned his place in the team. Jones could offer no argument to be picked like that of Turner but there was more than a stroke of irony in England’s six-wicket win in Melbourne. The medium-pace and spin of Giffen, the Trott brothers and McKibbin did not prove as effective as Richardson’s pace and nine wickets. After the last first-class game of the season, when he conceded more than 100 runs against the Englishmen without obtaining a wicket, some observers might have considered that Jones, who ended with 17 first-class wickets at 45.82, would end his international career as a one-Test wonder. However, Blackham was not one of them. Plainly, he had undergone something of a conversion by arguing that Jones should be one of the first men chosen to go to England with an Australian eleven. At this time the Jones family increased and both family and cricket connections were maintained. Jones’ first son, Ernest Joseph Giffin, took the names of himself, his father and the South Australian cricket captain, even if the latter’s name was misspelt! The boy was born in April, 1895. Star Ascending: 1892-1895 17