Jones the pace ready with a quick answer

With the benefit of two Tests on the fringes, the latest great hope wants a little more. Stephen Brenkley meets him

Shortly before noon on Friday, the latest greatest fast bowling hope on these shores sent a tingle down the spine. Simon Jones was plying his trade, mused seasoned observers sagely, like a proper, old-fashioned fast bowler. It was surely a wonderful omen.

He was batting at the time, but this should not necessarily diminish the certainty of the conclusion. Jones the Fastbowl, a lovely, lolloping Welsh lad, hit his first ball for six way over long-on and smashed 26 runs from five scoring shots. It was brief, cheerful and extremely violent. He relished it as did everybody else in Sophia Gardens, except Phil Tufnell, the bowler.

It was how speed merchants used to bat in the days before they were all given fancy ideas about the need to play forward prods for the side. If he also turns out to bowl like fast bowlers used to bowl, at least in the mind's eye, he will do.

Jones is a paceman in waiting. If he is not exactly pawing at the ground in desperate anticipation for his opportunity to put the wind up the sails of international batsmen (and up various other places as well) he is at the least caressing it with intent. Jones has been picked in two Test squads this summer without yet making the side.

The selectors now see him as the next big fast thing. If he keeps his nose clean and the ball straight he will be in by the end of the summer, or, failing that touring Australia on quicker pitches this winter. They know that they need that something extra that raw speed gives, they now have to find the additional courage to play him.

Jones may not be the finished article (fast bowlers rarely are that complete) but the outstanding weapon in his armoury makes him irresistibly exciting. In his quiet, Welsh way he knows it. He can reverse swing both ways as well.

"There'd been a lot of hype in the papers which I decided to ignore," he said. "When I got the England call-up I was shocked and started thinking, oh 'eck, I'm in now. It wasn't that I was disappointed not to play in the end, but it's made me more determined to get in." England made him welcome. He warmed to the captain, Nasser Hussain, recognising a man who expected a lot, and it helped that he knew the coach, Duncan Fletcher, who had been at Glamorgan when Jones arrived at the county.

"I felt a bit restricted in the nets actually. Fletch said not to bowl any bumper stuff because you don't want any broken fingers. But otherwise I was allowed off the leash. There's just something about bowling in that narrow area which didn't give me freedom." Wiseacres will say that this was because nets are not wide enough to contain some of the Jones boy's more wayward deliveries. They might also point out that Middlesex racked up 643 in this week's Championship match against Glamorgan but they should also know that Jones bowled at least one spell of real fury.

He is still prone, it is true, to spraying the odd one but he can also summon up demonic pace. Nobody knows how quick he is but enough Australians have made enough comparisons with Brett Lee to be sure that he is very fast indeed.

"When are you ready? I wouldn't know," he said. "I would say that I wasn't ready before I went to the National Academy last winter but that I believe in myself enough now to have a go. I've got 20 wickets this season in what amounts to four and a half matches and I know I can get good players out."

Jones is 23, a twin of Matthew who did not get the fast bowling genes, and the son of Jeff, the former Glamorgan and England bowler, who had to give up at 28 because of a chronic shoulder injury. He caught the eye as soon as he played for Glamorgan's first team in 1998. This is because the eye could not pick up the ball he propelled. Fortunately, he was encouraged to stay quick.

"Dad's never pushed me but he knows what it's like so that when I go home and I'm a bit down after a bad day he can sympathise. I've liked bowling fast from an early age and nothing has changed. You can tell that batsmen know, the heavy breathing and stuff like that. Their eyes open a little bit more and some back away. It can be a great feeling." It can also, it should always be remembered, get wickets at the other end.

Jones is not afraid to take advice, willingly coming under the tutelage of Lynn Davies, the former Olympic long-jump champion. Davies sorted out his stride pattern, which stopped the habitual no-balls, and the two still see each other.

Last summer Jones cut down his run from 26 to 10 paces to conserve energy. But it was almost too short and he is now two games into something in between, 15 paces. Last winter he also altered the angle of his left arm at delivery.

"Hard work, it felt strange but it was worth it. I feel I've grown up since the academy. Everybody including my mum and dad have noticed it. I've found that things don't come easily and that you've got to be honest with yourself. I've come out of my shell a bit."

He has filled out too around the thighs and now has the bottom of a fast bowler instead of a rock star. He still seems almost too diffident to ply this trade but then Glenn McGrath is a gent in the bar. And Jones bats like a fast bowler.