Jones boy has critics eating their words

Press, 15 January 1988, Page 18

Jones boy has critics eating their words

by

DAVID LEGGAT

of NZPA

All the pre-Australian cricket tour talk revolved around how New Zealand’s two world class players Richard Hadleeand' Martin Crowe would perform. They have played well but the tour has thrown up an unexpected trump card in Wellington batsman Andrew Jones. On his third New Zealand tour Jones came to Australia still to cement his place in the batting order, with just one test behind him and some patchy form in the World Cup in India. But Jones has proved the find of the tour, making a maiden test century, staked a

substantial claim for long term test selection, and answered

Australian media criti cism of his talents in the most appropriate manner imaginable. Jones began the tour with a match-winning unbeaten 84 and followed that with a solid double of 65 and 26 before going into the first test at Brisbane.

He made four and 45, having a tough time against the short pitched fast bowling of Australian trio, Bruce Reid, Craig McDermott and Merv Hughes.

As a result he was the butt of Australian critics who value style rather than effectiveness and grit.

Jones went to the second test at Adelaide to score a brilliant 150 and 64, becoming only the 13th New Zealander in test history to score 150 in a test innings and the Uth to get more than 200 runs in a test.

He ended the threematch series with 323 runs at 53.8 and at the

halfway mark of the WSC series has scored an excellent 243 runs at 60.75, outshining Martin Crowe. Jones, a 28-year-old Wellington tax consultant, admitted the criticism of himself and the New Zealand team at Brisbane played some part in a desire to show what he could do.

“It grated a bit, I thought some of it was just crap. It wasn’t so much a personal thing, more a general attitude towards New Zealand batting. The Australian slant annoyed me,” he said. Another key factor in Jones’s rise to prominence in the New Zealand lineup is his use of a written diary he has kept on tour, containing his personal thoughts on his form.

The idea came from his girlfriend of several years, Corrine Barber, a clinical psychologist.

“The whole idea is to be a bit more serious. That was one thing we thought would help eliminate errors.

“It’s written down, it’s there. But if you take a mental stock of something at the time you’ll make those mistakes again. If it’s written down you can refer back and it becomes indented,” he said. “She’s very good because everybody has somebody they’ve got to talk to and she’ll tell me when I’m talking rubbish.”

Jones broke into the New Zealand team for the ill-fated tour to Sri Lanka last April. After two games the trip was abandoned due to civil violence.

For several seasons he had been a Shell Trophy player for Central Districts, Otago and Wellington, and although on the fringe of bigger things he seemed destined for the almost-but-not-quite category.

Then three regular test batsmen, Bruce Edgar, John Reid and Jeremy Coney retired in a short space of time and Jones grabbed his chance. Born in Wellington and educated at Nelson College, Jones played Brabin and Rothmans under age representative cricket for Central Districts. He scored 93 against current New Zealand coach Gren Alabaster for Nelson against Southland in a Hawke Cup game at the age of 20 and made his first-class debut in 197980.

He was forced to open for Central, and his recollections of opening in those days helped make up his mind it was not the job for him. “I didn’t like opening but it was a very established side and if I was going to play it was only as an opener.

“I’ve got bad memories of opening. I got very nervous and tense. I felt I had to bat more defensively to try and get a good start.” He got his chance down the order with Otago and Wellington, proving himself a good first-class batsman at number three, four or five. And that is where he wants to stay.

In his last season with Otago, (1984-85), he made his maiden first-class century, and four fifties, scoring 608 runs at 55.27.

Then last summer he made the national selectors sit up when he scored

627 runs for Wellington - f he second highest aggregate in the province’s history - at 62.70, and followed that with a half century against the West Indies.

The question of opening arose again before the

second test when Ken Rutherford had failed in the first test and the New Zealand selectors were looking for a replacement. However, if they seriously considered using Jones at the top of the order, he vindicated their faith in his ability at number three with a match haul of 214 runs.

He has been obliged to open in the one-dayers, and has produced consecutive scores of 87, 34, 59 and 63. “I don’t mind in the one-day games because in a sense I can go out and have a free hand. A good start is important but in one dayers you don’t have that survival box round your head. “I rate myself as being able to hit through the field forward of the wicket so in some ways it suits me in the first 15 overs.”

Jones, quietly-spoken and personable, has found the one-day series physically very demanding. “I’ve found it really tough, fielding 50 overs then batting maybe 35 or 40 overs.

“I’ve enjoyed the games, but not the space we’ve had between them. That takes some of the gloss off it.”

Jones admitted to being pleased with his form in the test series, and regards his batting in the first session of the Adelaide test, when he passed 50 before lunch, as the

best he had produced on tour. “I think when I got to Adelaide I was a little bit more relaxed about my batting. It was a good wicket and I thought it was about time I showed these guys how to bat, without getting too uptight.” Jones rates the Australian pitches generally as

very good for batting. “They’re all a bit different but as batsmen we should be getting runs.” Although he yearned for the chance to prove himself good enough at top level, it is not in Jones’s nature to thump his chest and boldly pronounce a burning desire to play test cricket for the foreseeable future.

Jones has no specific goals but he enjoys cricket and gives the impression when that changes he will step aside.

“I always felt I was good enough, and had the ability to do it. Underneath • I always wanted that challenge. “I don’t have any set targets of playing test cricket till I’m 36, anything like that. “After the England tour ends, if I’m picked, it will be March and I’ll assess how I’ve gone, whether I’ve enjoyed it, whether I’m getting what I want out of it then look at next season.”

Jones adopts a pragmatic view of cricket and a refreshingly simple attitude to it.

“Let’s face it, it’s only a game. You don’t starve if you don’t play cricket. You can still enjoy life if you’re not playing.

“I don’t feel I have to prove anything to anybody. What I would like to do, if I’m picked, is to try to score as many runs as I can at number three for as long as I’m playing.”

Although Canterbury finished out of the major placings at the men’s and women's Rothmans national softball tournaments this month Paul Shannon and Natalie Hazelwood achieved a “first” for the province with their batting double. They are shown with their trophies for topping the A section batting averages. Playing in the men’s nationals at Rosedale Park, Albany, Shannon won the batting trophy with a tournament batting average of .364, representing eight safe hits in 22 turns at bat. Among those hits were a triple against Combined Services and a double against Bay of Plenty. The only Canterbury player to have previously won the A section batting trophy was the short-stop, Jimmy Hall (now playing for Wellington), four years’ ago.

Shannon, > who also shared the prize for most stolen bases with North Harbour’s Danny Di Marzio, was subsequently named at first base in the New Zealand Emerging Players side (more correctly New Zealand B) to play the United States team, Larry Miller, from Utah. In the first international Shannon picked up a hit and batted in a run, but was disappointingly struck out with his team in a run-scoring position in the second game. Shannon, known in Canterbury softball circles as “Rowdy,” has one very

solid obstacle to his chances of making the New Zealand team of 17 for the men’s world series in Saskatoon, Canada, from July 29 to August 7 — the big Auckland first baseman and power batter, Murray McLean. To make the world series team in some capacity Shannon will need to bat well for Canterbury’s representative, United, in the forthcoming Lion Red Series national league. While Shannon is hoping his career is about to blossom, Hazelwood’s is about to end, temporarily at least. She intends to take a year off softball after the end of the season. The Canterbury captain finished the women’s nationals at Porritt Park last week with the mightly batting average of .533. In 30 trips to the batter’s box she collected 16 safe hits, including a three-bagger and two doubles. She made the New Zealand tournament team at second base. Hazelwood was quite pleased with her own batting, but said it was a shame the Canterbury team did not finish higher than fourth place. More consistency through the batting order was required. She is now looking ahead to the end of the season when her club team, Albion, will represent Canterbury in the women’s national interclub tournament at Logan Park, Dunedin, from March 2 to 6.