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Career Averages that dont do justice

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
He was the man who made ODI batting what it is today. Of course, if he hadn't then someone else would have, but that applies to Newton and any other groundbreaker you care to name - Jones deserves to be recognised as the first to take that step.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
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.
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.

You can claim all you want that his last innings in 1988/89 was vital to Australia's players' gaining of belief - and maybe it was, but there's no way you can be certain about that. It could very easily have happened anyway.

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.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
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.
 

Lillian Thomson

Hall of Fame Member
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........
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
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.
The Moon doesn't orbit the Earth. They both orbit around a common centre of gravity. :p
 

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