I WAS IN HUGE PAIN BUT CAME BACK BETTER
On the opening day of the 2002-03 series in Brisbane, england paceman SimOn JOneS slid for the ball on the Gabba outfield and ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee...
Redemption came amid the glory of England’s historic 2005 win, when Jones took 18 wickets in four Tests. Victory at Trent Bridge proved to be his international farewell in a career cruelly dogged by injury. ‘Although they kept replaying it on the big screen, I’ve only watched it back once. It’s too graphic. I’ve seen people’s reactions and they are of total horror,’ he tells Sportsmail, reflecting on the Brisbane accident. Carried from the pitch by Steve Harmison and Jason Gillespie, he was met with a snarl of ‘weak Pommie b******’ from a home fan as they passed through the crowd. ‘I was lying on the physio bed in the dressing room thinking, “What’s going to happen?” I was in so much pain.’ Jones was sidelined for 18 months but made up for lost time as one of the Fab Four fast bowlers in 2005. ‘It made me come back a better bowler. I was young and raw at the time and bowling a few miles an hour quicker, but my skillset was far superior when I came back,’ he says. Australia could not handle Jones’s 90mph reverse swing; his booming in-ducker at Old Trafford that outfoxed Michael Clarke to uproot off-stump remains one of the most vivid moments of the 2-1 win. ‘They were the ultimate opposition because of their mindset. I loved and hated them. I loved the way they approached the game but you also loved getting one up on them. ‘I respected them immensely but I didn’t fear them. You knew if you bowled a ball in the wrong area to Matthew Hayden, Ricky Ponting or Adam Gilchrist it was gone. ‘I had worked so hard for so long to get the rhythm back after that injury. I knew once I ran up, the ball was going to be in the right area. ‘That summer I was as confident as at any time in my career, and as a team we were a family. We had been together for a long time and enjoyed each other’s successes. ‘We would try our backsides off on the field, then have a few beers. That’s why the nation took to us. They could see we were human.’