Lives in Cricket No 4 - Ernie Jones

Chapter Three The Great Fast Bowler: 1896-1899 Significant progress was made by Jones in the 1895/96 domestic season. For the first time his South Adelaide captain, Reedman, promoted him to open the batting in an early season match against lowly club, Austral. And for the first time he revealed himself as a punishing batsman at first-class level by making 66 out of 91 in an hour in a last-wicket partnership with Fred Jarvis against Victoria. After this success he continued to bat, and make runs, in the middle order in club matches. Not only did he undertake a heavy workload with the ball, but he bowled with penetration and economy, even if sometimes in a losing cause. An example was Jones’ 7 for 103 from 43 overs in an innings loss against New South Wales. He was described as never having bowled better on a perfect Adelaide Oval wicket, and received a deserved ovation. If ever a performance was meant to convince the national selectors that he was worth his place in the Australian team, this was it. However, because of the custom of picking the side in stages, when Tom Garrett and George Giffen met on the Tuesday after the game (7 January, 1896) they, along with third selector, Billy Bruce, released the names of only six players for the coming tour of England. These six were Giffen and Bruce themselves, Harry Trott, Darling, Iredale and Gregory. While it was felt that other certainties, such as Jones, should have been named, they had to wait three weeks until the end of January when the number was raised to thirteen, and even after that further changes were made. Still there were critics and ‘Mid-On’ in the Melbourne Leader condemned the selectors, arguing that Jones had done nothing to merit selection, that he could not maintain his pace for more than half a dozen overs, and was erratic with his length. The Adelaide Advertiser cricket writer could obviously be accused of parochialism when he noted that ‘Jones is the fastest trundler in Australia and has performed well on all classes of wickets’. However, it was true to say that he was also bowling more with his 19