The Ashes: First-ball Jones Has No Need for a Loosener

There can be no better knack for a bowler than the ability to claim a wicket with the first ball of a spell. Matthew Hoggard unwittingly stumbled on the secret in the second Test at Edgbaston, dismissing Matthew Hayden with his first ball of the game - caught at short extra cover - and then persuading Damien Martyn to chip to mid-wicket with the first ball of his second spell in the second innings.

Yesterday, remarkably, it happened on three occasions - twice for Simon Jones and once for Andrew Flintoff.

Hoggard's first success at Edgbaston came from positioning two men on the drive on the off side for Hayden, one very straight man almost standing on the cut strip and the other at extra cover. The Australian's scoring arc is mainly through the V and it is the England team's opinion that when he has two such fielders within his vision he will attempt to drive the ball squarer on the off side. That would be a most unnatural course of action for him, and rendered more perilous if Hoggard can achieve sharp inswing.

The plan was the same yesterday, but Hoggard's first delivery did not bear fruit. His second, though, swung into Hayden and rapped him on the pads, with all of the England team raising a vehement appeal. The umpire Billy Bowden declined.

TV technology showed that the ball would probably have clipped leg stump but there was a doubt and it was a good decision, unlike Bowden's earlier rejection of an appeal from Shane Warne when Simon Jones heaved across the line and was struck on the back leg.

That mattered little to Australia, though, as Jones soon attempted a reprise and was bowled.

Not that it would have overly concerned Jones either, even in this age of tail-end (or latter order, as we are supposed to term them) dedication to batting. His business is bowling and, to return to our theme, his first ball after tea was a snorting delivery which Australia's captain Ricky Ponting could only spar to backward point.

As a bugler sounded out Delilah, Jones roared in from the Stretford End to demonstrate that not only is he England's most improved bowler but also arguably their most important. Justin Langer had intimated as much before the series began, and it might have been that the Australian opener was recalling how in the past 18 months his side have often taken advantage of a weak link in an attack.

England do not possess one now. Hoggard may not be at his best this summer, with 20 expensive championship wickets for Yorkshire at 36.60 counteracting his man-of-the-match efforts against Bangladesh in Durham, but he bowled his most economical opening spell of this series yesterday. He can also expect more atmospheric assistance in the fourth Test at Trent Bridge, now firmly recognised as a ground conducive to swing bowling since the addition of a new stand.

But Jones just keeps on improving, as high-quality spells of 7-2-18-1 and 3-0-12-2 proved here. His debut against India in 2002 proved that the big-match environment excites rather than inhibits him, unlike some other Welshmen who have represented England. But to add to that most fundamental ingredient for long-term achievement, his skill levels have received significant and successful attention of late.

Last winter in South Africa he honed his accuracy to such an extent that we might have been witnessing his former Glamorgan colleague and renowned metronome Steve Watkin. Crucially, too, Jones had worked with England's coach Duncan Fletcher in Namibia and Zimbabwe (a one-day series prior to South Africa) on a new grip to aid away-swing from the right-handed batsman, an asset Jones had possessed as a schoolboy but which has been glimpsed only occasionally since.

Reverse swing (into the right-handed batsman) has always been his preserve, and on returning for the first ball of his second spell in early evening he found the left-handed Adam Gilchrist's outside edge with one such.

In this series Jones has also proved himself a rare exponent of reverse swing the other way - reverse reverse swing, if that makes sense. In other words he can swing the old ball away from the right-hander, or into the left-hander, as Hayden nearly found to his cost when a yorker thus purveyed thudded into his pads. One wonders whether the batsman picked the delivery.

He had more chance against Jones than Flintoff, though, who in aping Glenn McGrath from the first day rushed into bowl with his left hand always covering the ball, thus denying the batsman a glimpse of which side might be shiny. That may have been what did for a bewildered Simon Katich, who was bowled shouldering arms from Flintoff's first ball after drinks. It used to be that a bowler's first delivery was often a loosener; not any more.