Do England Miss The Pace Of Welsh Wizard Simon Jones ?

[Manee]

Saj is quick but he isnt rapid and certainly not quick enough to paper over his obvious faults and failures. If he was bowling 150 kph instead of 140 kph then Id pay more attention.

Definately, this is something I note with Sreesanth too. It sounds silly, but you have to be touching 150kph (rather than 140-145kph) to be bowling with poor accuracy and succeed. Notice Shaun Tait's fine ODI strike rate, for example. He has poor accuracy, but touches 150kph and so the qualities of any good balls are exentuated several times and more result in wickets.

 

[Cevno]

Losing simon jones was a blow to england ,but to suggest that he would have been a massive force and england done a lot better is a bit over the top.
If that is the case then how many bowlers can india and pakistan claim to like that.Nehra,balaji,agarkar,mohammad akram,Mohammed Zahid all come to mind.
I think every team barring perhaps south africa ,australia,windies have had major problems with injuries to fast bowlers.

 

[Top_Cat]

Losing simon jones was a blow to england ,but to suggest that he would have been a massive force and england done a lot better is a bit over the top.
If that is the case then how many bowlers can india and pakistan claim to like that.Nehra,balaji,agarkar,mohammad akram,Mohammed Zahid all come to mind.
I think every team barring perhaps south africa ,australia,windies have had major problems with injuries to fast bowlers.

None of those guys were a huge portion of the difference in a really big Test series, though. That's what fuels peoples' perceptions of Jones; he was a big reason why England won in 2005 against Australia.

It's a bit of a myth that Tait isn't accurate too. He gets a lot of bowled and LBW's, the only reason he also throws some wides into the equation is because he's trying to go flat out every ball. When he deliberately pares it back a bit, as he did in the WC, his overall accuracy is fine, even if he did bowl a couple of wayward spells. He's not hitting the top of off-stump, sure, but he's not sending down crap either (Perth Test notwithstanding).

 

[The Masterplan]

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[Richard]

Interesting post.

 

[aussie]

If Simon Jones had an injury free career, there is very little doubt in my mind that he would be the best bowler going around in the world at the present moment. There is no one in international cricket that is capable of reverse swinging the ball both ways in the manner in which he did, let alone doing so at nearly 90mph and also possessing the ability to swing the ball conventionally. If there is any bowler bar Mohammad Asif that was able to maintain a more upright seam position after delivery, please keep me aware.

He would have definately been one of the best not sure about being the best. Would have been great so see him exploit his reverse swing on recent England tours to the sub-continent though.

 

[Cevno]

None of those guys were a huge portion of the difference in a really big Test series, though. That's what fuels peoples' perceptions of Jones; he was a big reason why England won in 2005 against Australia.

Agarkar was the fastest to 50 and 100 ODI's wicket i think before injury struck.He was also a major reason as to why india drew the series in aus in 2004 specially the adelaide test.

Zahid and nehra never played many test but they were impressive in their tenure before injuries.Nehra was a major reason as to why india reached a WC final.

Balaji was as big a reason as jones was in the ashes as to why india won a test series in pakistan.

 

[Gloucefan]

England miss him but pace wasn't his biggest asset, he was not in the same league as Lee, Akhtar etc. as far as pace is concerned. England have faster bowlers than Jones at their disposal. They just miss one who can actually bowl.

 

[The Masterplan]

England miss him but pace wasn't his biggest asset, he was not in the same league as Lee, Akhtar etc. as far as pace is concerned. England have faster bowlers than Jones at their disposal. They just miss one who can actually bowl.

Back in the 2005 ashes series, jones was not the fastest bowler.. because of Flintoff and Harmison, but he was fairly quick.. but i cant think of any current english bowlers who are out and out quick ? Possibly Anderson on top form ?!

 

[tedjones]

one of our teachers told me and jake that welsh people don't really exist, only in the way that King Arthur does.

 

[GIMH]

 

[Gloucefan]

Back in the 2005 ashes series, jones was not the fastest bowler.. because of Flintoff and Harmison, but he was fairly quick.. but i cant think of any current english bowlers who are out and out quick ? Possibly Anderson on top form ?!

Nah not even Anderson, obviously Harmison was...

Agreed but Jones is more of a late 80's rather than mid 90's.

Tremlett is capable of mid 90's if you believe the radar gun and TMS.

 

[Richard]

Never seen Tremlett bowl anywhere near that fast TBH but he doesn't really need to - with his height and the length of his arms he'll be highly dangerous at 80mph if he can hit the right areas and, obviously, get his seam-position good.

Obviously, though, his most required facet is avoiding injury. If he can do that I cannot conceive Broad will end-up a better bowler than him.

 

[Richard]

one of our teachers told me and jake that welsh people don't really exist, only in the way that King Arthur does.

Jokes like that are pretty poor ITBT.

 

[Manee]

Never seen Tremlett bowl anywhere near that fast TBH but he doesn't really need to - with his height and the length of his arms he'll be highly dangerous at 80mph if he can hit the right areas and, obviously, get his seam-position good.

Personally, I have seen him push 90mph when really running in and trying to hit the bat hard in a T20. Simon Jones was pretty damn sharp in his first stint, although no numbers come to mind; but when he extended his run up, he lost a yard of pace.

 

[Richard]

Even pre-cruciate-ligament injury, Jones was no more than 92-93mph tops (though the media made many people believe he was faster than this prior to his Test debut, as he had never been timed before then). He was never Allan Donald or Shoaib Akhtar material, more Darren Gough or (early-career) Glenn McGrath.

 

[Manee]

Even pre-cruciate-ligament injury, Jones was no more than 92-93mph tops (though the media made many people believe he was faster than this prior to his Test debut, as he had never been timed before then). He was never Allan Donald or Shoaib Akhtar material, more Darren Gough or (early-career) Glenn McGrath.

Certainly. Now that I think about it, he did top at about 92mph.

 

[TT Boy]

Losing simon jones was a blow to england ,but to suggest that he would have been a massive force and england done a lot better is a bit over the top.
If that is the case then how many bowlers can india and pakistan claim to like that.Nehra,balaji,agarkar,mohammad akram,Mohammed Zahid all come to mind.
I think every team barring perhaps south africa ,australia,windies have had major problems with injuries to fast bowlers.

Schultz, Terbrugge and Ngam?

 

[Gloucefan]

Never seen Tremlett bowl anywhere near that fast TBH but he doesn't really need to - with his height and the length of his arms he'll be highly dangerous at 80mph if he can hit the right areas and, obviously, get his seam-position good.

Obviously, though, his most required facet is avoiding injury. If he can do that I cannot conceive Broad will end-up a better bowler than him.

Agreed I think Tremlett is the outstanding 'young' (given that he's 26) England bowler. I'd love to see him stay free of injury.

It was during the India series last year (I can't remember if it was on TMS or a Sky commentator) but it was mentioned that he was clocked bowling consistently mid 90's in a match (can't remember what format) all be it with the wind behind him.

In fact I'm sure his cricinfo profile briefly 'promoted' him to 'right arm fast' for a while, although this means nothing.

 

[Richard]

Indeed, CricInfo and TV profiles had Curtley Ambrose and Courtney Walsh as "right-arm fast" in 2000 when they were both around about 80mph.

Of course, both were still as good as if not better than ever, but they were categorically not fast any more.