Shane Warne recalls the jokes, stories and persona which made Dean Jones so much fun to be around
An innovator, a maverick and a great friend. From the hilarious introduction to Test cricket to bar stories and self-appointed nicknames, Shane Warne recalls the lighter side of Dean Jones, the man he grew up pretending to be.
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It’s such a sad day for the cricket family, the world cricket family when we lose one of our own. We’re so tight. But especially when it was someone like Dean Jones, who loved the game so much. We all love it, but “Deano” was on another level.
He was an innovator, a maverick, he revolutionised the way the pyjama game was played, the one-day game modernised because of him. His running between the wickets, dropping the ball on the 30-yard circle to get two runs, his fielding, he was really athletic.
He was always trying to think of ways cricket could get better in all forms. Deano could talk for hours about it because he was so passionate. For every 10 ideas there were two or three you’d walk away and the more you thought about it you’d think “there’s something in that”.
I got to know him when I first joined the Victorian state squad in the late 1980s. There was Merv Hughes, Simon O’Donnell and Dean Jones, they were the three big stars, not just in Victorian cricket, but Australian cricket. They were pin-ups, and heroes to the public. As an 18-year-old coming in to the squad, and making my debut with those guys, I was so lucky to have someone like Deano look after me. Deano and Merv played with me in my first Test match and looked after me there, too.
It makes you laugh when you think back to so many things Deano said, so many wonderful times too. In that first Test I was getting smacked around the park, Ravi Shastri skies one to deep cover and Deano takes the catch. He comes into the huddle and says, “Well done champ”. He used to call everyone champ. He said, “You’ve got your first one, they can’t take that away from you”.
Then we went to Sri Lanka in 1992, and I was getting smacked all over the park again, and I got my second Test wicket. He came in the huddle and said, “Well done champ, you now average 435 runs per wicket, well done”. Thanks for that, Deano.
So many of my teammates, more the later generation, had posters of Deano on their wall. They all wanted to be like him. The posters on my wall didn’t involve cricket, but in the back yard or down the beach a few summers before I joined Victoria, I was pretending to be Deano like everyone. He was the most flamboyant player there was, a character.
He could be confrontational, he could rub you up the wrong way at times, but the more you got to know Dean Jones, the more you understood what made him tick. He was hungry, he was passionate, he was driven, and just wanted to perform. He was always thinking about the game too.
He was ahead of his time. He would have been a fantastic modern-day cricketer, that’s all forms, the way Test matches are played, one day games, and T20. He was the catalyst for the way one-day cricket has evolved. International teams looked at Australia, looked at Dean Jones and the way he played. Like Viv Richards and Dean Jones, that’s what people were trying to emulate. Walking down the wicket, the way he had that aggressive approach and intent. He even played Test cricket that way, and he’s got a wonderful Test record as well.
His innings in Madras, the tied Test, that 210, in those conditions, was one of the best of all time. And don’t worry, he told you about it, if you didn’t bring it up in the first five minutes of a conversation.
He loved telling stories and we as teammates and friends would wind him up. We’d say “Deano, geez it’s hot out here, it’s like we’re in Madras”. And he’d be straight in to the story: “It was so much hotter in Madras, I don’t know how I did it.”
But it was playful. When he was telling stories, it was like “that’s enough about me, what do you think of me?”, but with a laugh. He was fun to be around.
He was a very good tourist too. A fun tourist. He used to just love sitting at the bar with all the boys, telling stories, being the centre of attention. Deano would always add a bit of mayo to a story too, he’d always exaggerate for extra effect, but that was part of the charm. And when he took a break from talking about cricket — which was rare — he would always have a theory on golf or something his beloved Carlton footy club should be doing.
On the field he had that confidence, that swagger, because he believed in how good he was. And he was too. He nicknamed himself the “The Ledge”. That rubbed off on his teammates.
When the best player walks to the crease in games, the intensity always ramps up in the field. But because of Deano, the way he was, his swagger and everything, the opposition perked up a bit more. He was one of those players you loved playing with, but you could fully understand why the opposition didn’t like him. They respected him, they had to, he was that good. But he was always the prized wicket.
I bowled to him a lot in the nets, and it was always on. He was like Allan Border in the nets. With AB it was like a Test match. Some blokes go in, have a hit, have a slog, if they get out, didn’t matter. For Deano it was a battle. He was one of the hardest blokes to bowl to. It was full on, and great practice. It was a proper “you’re not getting me out”. It was such good practice bowling to them in the lead up to a match.
I think he should have played a lot more Test cricket too. He should have been on the 1993 Ashes tour for one. He got dropped when he probably shouldn’t have, but when he was out, and started making all those Sheffield Shield runs, it was a situation where the Test team was so strong, once you were in, it was hard to get out. But he should have played more, absolutely.
I’ve got so many memories of just being with Deano, in a team environment, talking, about everything, him doing and saying silly things and everyone ripping him apart. It would be “C’mon Deano” all the time and he’d be laughing and loving it. It makes me smile just thinking about it.
I remember rooming with him for my first Test, just sitting in the room, talking with each other about the game, me soaking it all in. I’m so thankful for that.
He’d message me a lot, wherever I was, wherever he was, about anything and everything. He used to rib me about my golf handicap. He’d call me a bandit.
When I was commentating he’d send me stats, asked me if I’d thought about this or that, with his professor hat on, Professor Deano.
He sent me a message when I landed in Dubai last week. I posted a picture on social media, and he texted me straight away, with a picture of him and Brett Lee and all the other commentators.
Then on Friday I got a message about what happened.
My thoughts are with Jane and the girls. It’s just so sad.
There’s been so many nice things said about Deano since Friday, but you feel like it would have been so nice for him to hear how much he impacted and touched so many people in the cricket family, how he inspired so many cricketers to be like him, how he revolutionised the game.
He would have enjoyed that.
RIP Deano.
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Originally published as Shane Warne recalls the jokes, stories and persona which made Dean Jones so much fun to be around