Dean Jones, while in conversation with Shane Watson on Lessons Learnt with the Greats podcast, revealed the reasons why he abruptly ended his ODI career with Australia.
Jones, 33 at the time, was included in the team after the first four ODIs of Australia’s eight-match series in South Africa in 1994. However, he was dropped from the XI ahead of the last match, with the hosts leading 4-3 and Australia needing a win to draw the series.
“I was in South Africa, they picked me to go over there and then they knocked off me from the one-day team,” he said. “It was 3-3 (4-3), we were playing the last game, everything was on the line, and Mark Taylor and David Boon picked themselves before me.
“I said, ‘Are you trying to tell me that you’re a better player than me, in one-day cricket? Really? Well, that’s it, I’m done.’ And I retired straightaway [he continued to play first-class cricket till 1998]. That was it. They said, ‘No, you got to go to Sharjah to play all these one-day series.’ I’m going no, I went on, (and) that was it. No thank you, no nothing. That was it.
“I just wish I had a few more people around me, my dad and all. We could afford to take them on you know. Like this day and age, you have good people around you who make better decisions.”
The seventh ODI of the series was Jones’ last outing for Australia, two years after his final Test appearance in 1992. In what was a fine 10-year international career, he scored 3,631 runs in 52 Tests at 46.55 and 6,068 runs in 164 ODIs at 44.61.
