Wilf Wooller could have been talking about Jofra Archer, had he not been discussing a cricketing elbow injury over a quarter of a century before Archer’s birth. “Cricketers have had this before and got over it, but for a fast bowler it is different,” Wooller said. “Even a medium-pacer might get away with it but with anyone who bowls really quickly the joint has to take tremendous strain.”
What Wooller didn’t know about sport wasn’t worth knowing – one of the great athletic polymaths, he played rugby union and squash for Wales, turned out at centre-forward for Cardiff City, and was Glamorgan’s opening bowler and captain for 13 years, their secretary for 30 and their president for another six – and the particular elbow he was vexed by belonged to Jeff Jones.
It is increasingly hard not to not to think of Jones when the latest Archer newsflash pops up, and the England bowler jets home from another injury-affected foreign trip. For Jones was – a familiar story, this – a brilliant fast bowler whose career was derailed in his mid-20s by an injury to the elbow of his bowling arm that simply would not stop hurting, and spent two years embarking on a succession of aborted comebacks, every one breathlessly reported in the nation’s media.
It is here that we hope the pair’s stories diverge, because for Jones the injury issues continued until it became obvious that his career would end before they did. Archer has played 13 Tests and taken 42 wickets, two fewer on both counts than the number Jones had reached when the wheels came off. He ended the fifth Test against West Indies in March 1968 a hero, his unbeaten 12-ball innings of nought at No 11 helping his side to the draw that sealed a 1-0 series victory.
But it was this game that changed his career in all the wrong ways – and all he did was throw a ball. “I went to throw it in under-arm,” he said, many years later. “As I did so I felt something click. I told [Sussex’s] John Snow and he said just to rest it until the start of our season and it would be OK. But it never was.”
Jones declared himself fit for the start of the 1968 season, but in early June the injury flared up again. He was 26 and would play only two more first-class games, and bowl fewer than 35 more overs. The rest of that summer passed in a blur of cortisone injections and medical manipulations, but he played against Cambridge University in June and, after a minor operation in August, for MCC against Yorkshire in September, doing enough to win a place on England’s winter tour to Sri Lanka and Pakistan. “He was full of bounce and life, convinced he had got over the injury,” Wooller said.
But in Sri Lanka the elbow went again. “I felt a twinge and then it went completely, swelling like a balloon at the joint,” he said. The day England arrived in Pakistan it was announced that Jones was to immediately head home. “It seems likely that surgery is the only answer,” he said. “I am bound to be worried about my future career. Before I went to Pakistan I had no suspicions the elbow would go. I had a medical examination and the surgeon was very satisfied.”
On his return Jones was “told by a London specialist that an operation should clear up the trouble once and for all”. After surgery he was advised to rest for three months, but in May his doctor was disappointed with his progress and the clock was reset. That summer he turned out for Dafen and for Bridgend in club cricket but not for Glamorgan, who shrugged off his absence to win their first County Championship title in 21 years. That success earned them a tour of West Indies the following spring (largely funded by Rizla, the cigarette paper manufacturer whose British headquarters was just outside Pontypridd). Once again, Jones was considered fit enough to travel.
“I’ve been out of the game too long and I’m looking forward to some good, hard cricket,” he said.
It sounded like quite the trip. “While the other 16 first-class counties were preparing for the season in customary woolly underwear with fingers like frosty carrots,” the batter Peter Walker wrote in the Guardian
, “Glamorgan [were] splashing along the deserted beaches of Bermuda, St Kitts, Dominica, Grenada and Trinidad, soaking up vast quantities of dust, rum and sunshine and generally cavorting like millionaires.”
In Trinidad, during the final net session on the final stop of his final tour, Jones broke down again. He came home to news that Glamorgan would not be renewing his contract. “For years we have put up with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune from people like Frank Tyson and Fred Trueman because we had no one to strike back,” Wooller said of Jones. “With Jeff Jones if anyone on the other side got a bit uppish, you could tell him to let them have one around their nut and that would do the trick.”
Cricket Scotland has handed out its first ever raft of women's contracts, with nine players signed up for the 2023-24 season in a 'landmark moment' for the sport.
The introduction of professional deals for the women's setup was announced in November and the first intake has now been confirmed with Abbi Aitken-Drummond, Priyanaz Chatterji, Katherine Fraser, Lorna Jack, Ailsa Lister, Megan McColl, Orla Montgomery, Hannah Rainey and Ellen Watson agreeing terms.
Other players from the national squad, including Abtaha Maqsood and the Bryce sisters, Kathryn and Sarah, already have professional deals at English regional sides.
'We are thrilled to announce this year's contracts and for women's cricket in Scotland in particular, this really is a landmark moment,' said the interim head of performance, Toby Bailey. 'I'm absolutely delighted that nine of our best women's players have agreed to be the first to sign with Cricket Scotland.'
'Our new setup will enable those players from the women's squad who have signed to devote more time to training and practice,' Bailey added. 'We believe this is a major move towards putting the women's game onto a fully professional footing.'
A total of 14 men's players have been retained for the next year, led by the captain Richie Berrington.
Simon, one of Jones’s three sons, was to follow his father into the Glamorgan and England teams, was similarly injury-affected in his career, and like his dad played his final Test aged 26.
Archer, who turned 28 last month, was 25 when he last played a Test. Word from the ECB is that his premature return from the IPL is a sign not of fresh injury but of a laser focus on being fit for the international summer, and there is every chance that future episodes of his personal drama are a little cheerier.
After all, cricketers have had this before and got over it – but for a fast bowler it is different.
