It may be a fair reflection of his high level of ability, but it isn't a fair reflection of how much contribution he made to the success (or otherwise) of Team Australia. Ultimately the only thing Jones can really be credited with is kickstarting the revival by being a run-machine as it was chugging into motion, in 1989 and 1989/90.I just think we sometimes risk slicing these things a bit too finely, and attaching these great big unstickable labels to players which unfairly stigmatise them. Which is a criticism that can be levelled at a lot of what's written on CW tbf.
Ultimately, Dean Jones averaged 46 and that was a pretty fair reflection of his high level of ability. Whether he got those in "live" series against England, or "dead" series against the West Indies (and I challenge you to say that the former is more impressive than the latter) doesn't really detract from that for me. Not least because, as I say and as I think you agree, this is likely just to be a statistical anomaly of the sort that can happen when you're dealing with a career of middling length like his.
I would say it's quite easy to argue that Mark was the superior........Not really. Waugh Snr.'s style was always going to make him a decent rather than excellent ODI batsman.
That's one area where no-one can possibly argue that Mark was the superior.
I would say it's quite easy to argue that Mark was the superior........
By "argue" I mean "argue against".
The Moon doesn't orbit the Earth. They both orbit around a common centre of gravity.You can be as certain as you can that the Moon orbits the Earth that Jones made very little contribution to Australia's Test match success outside 1989 and 1989/90.