Lives in Cricket No 4 - Ernie Jones

appeared to be striking hard wage bargains with the SACA when he had an increasing number of mouths to feed. In between arguments over money the Jones family suffered a second tragedy. Their second son, Clement, died of bronchial pneumonia, aged two, in October on the same day that Jones had completed match figures of 10 wickets for 108 in his district club North Adelaide’s win over East Torrens on the northern end of Adelaide Oval. At least on this occasion Jones was home to share the grief with his wife, and he pulled out of North’s team the following week as expressions of sympathy were received and cricket comrades wore black armbands as a mark of respect. Jones continued his strong form for South Australia and was an automatic selection in Joe Darling’s 1899 Australian side which toured England. He again headed the national bowling aggregates with 45 wickets at 27.53, but it could be argued that his captains, Darling (and Lyons), bowled him into the ground in his Sheffield Shield matches – if 292 overs in four games is any guide. In fact, in his first match against Victoria, Lyons gave him 70 overs in the first innings in which he took 5 for 192 but spared him a little in the second with just 32 overs from which he gathered a further four wickets. This state of affairs certainly brought strong criticism from correspondent ‘Old Cricketer’ writing to the Adelaide Observer : Once again South Australia lost the cricket match through bad captaincy. Time after time we have seen matches literally thrown away through want of a captain who is master of the ordinary rudiments of a good cricket general. One of the chief faults of our leaders is seen in the management of their bowlers. They will not change the bowling. A bowler is allowed, or allows himself, to go on bowling over after over without getting a wicket until the batsmen get thoroughly set, and then the change is too late. . . . Jones would be far and away more difficult to play if he were bowled for a few overs at a time, and so in fact would any of the others. Is it apathy, laziness or ignorance? It is apathy. A bowler is put on. A great business is made of arranging the field, and when once put in their places there they remain, and there the bowler stays until some little larrikin calls out, “Take ‘im off.” Darling received praise for his better handling of the bowlers in the second match of the year, against New South Wales in The Great Fast Bowler: 1896-1899 41