Dean Mervyn Jones AM (born 24 March 1961) is a retired Australian
cricketer, and is presently a coach. He also worked as a commentator for
TEN Sports until August 2006, and worked as a senior commentator for the
Indian Cricket League (ICL), which used to broadcast on both TEN Sports and its sister channel
Zee Sports until 2008.
Career
Jones began his first class career in the 1981–82 season with
Victoria in the
Sheffield Shield. He made his
Test debut for
Australia in the West Indies in 1984. He was not picked in the original XI, but was drafted into the side after
Steve Smith fell ill. Jones himself was very ill before the Test, and deemed his score of 48 on his debut as his "best knock".
Between 1984 and 1992, Jones played 52 Test matches for Australia, scoring 3,631 runs, including 11 centuries, at an average of 46.55.
His most notable innings was in only his third Test, against
India in the
Tied Test in
Chennai (Madras) in 1986. Suffering from dehydration in the oppressively hot and humid conditions, Jones was frequently vomiting on the pitch. He wanted to go off the field "retired ill" which led his captain
Allan Border to say that if he could not handle the conditions, "then let's get a real Australian" (
Greg Ritchie, a Queenslander like Border, was the next man in to bat). This comment spurred Jones to score 210, an innings he considered a defining moment in his career and...
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