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| Sunday, 26 May 2002 |
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England pick rookie paceman to combat Lanka's batting by Sa'adi Thawfeeq reporting from England CARDIFF, WALES, May 25 - England have added a bowler with raw pace to counter Sri Lanka's free-scoring batsmen on flat batting pitches for the second cricket Test starting at Edgbaston on Thursday. Uncapped 23-year-old, 6ft 3 1/2 in tall Simon Jones, who is considered to be one of the quickest bowlers playing county cricket this season was added to the England squad of 13 today. Jones is the son of former Glamorgan and England fast bowler Jeff Jones, who toured Sri Lanka with the MCC team captained by Colin Cowdrey in the mid sixties. Jones is playing for Glamorgan against Sri Lanka here and finished with figures of one for 79 off 20 overs, taking the wicket of tailender Dilhara Fernando. He also came for some rough treatment from Sri Lanka captain Sanath Jayasuriya who carved him over cover for six during his blazing half-century. But nonetheless, Jones' pace impressed England's chairman of selectors David Graveney who was present at Cardiff on the opening day to watch him in action. "Simon is young and raw, but he has an outstanding natural asset in his speed. And we feel that we would like to have him at our disposal until we have had a chance to look at the pitch and assess how it will play," said Graveney. "The Lord's Test showed that Sri Lanka have a very talented batting line-up and if we continue to play on bland surfaces that favour the batsmen, we need to have other options available in our bowling attack," he said. On a flat Lord's track, Sri Lanka ran up a total of 555-8 declared, the eighth occasion they had passed the 500-run mark in their last ten Tests and England captain Nasser Hussain moaned the lack of a bowler with raw pace or a mystery spinner. Jones who attended the England and Wales Cricket Board's (ECB) National Academy in Australia last winter has taken 13 wickets in first-class cricket this season at a cost of 21.38 including a career best 6-45 v Derbyshire. He impressed Rod Marsh, the director of the Academy so much that he drew comparisons with Jeff Thomson, the former Australian speedster. Jones is also included as a cover up for injured fast bowler Dominic Cork who is struggling with a groin injury to be fit for the Edgbaston Test. England are already without their spearhead of the bowling attack Darren Gough who has been ruled out of the Sri Lankan series with a knee injury. England squad: Nasser Hussain (captain), Mark Butcher, Andrew Caddick, Dominic Cork, John Crawley, Andrew Flintoff, Ashley Giles, Matthew Hoggard, Simon Jones, Alec Stewart, Graham Thorpe, Marcus Trescothick, Alex Tudor, Michael Vaughan. Rain - no play CARDIFF, May 25 (Reuters) - Rain prevented any play on the third day of the four-day tour match between Glamorgan and Sri Lanka on Saturday: Sri Lanka 337-7 (K. Sangakkara 113, H. Tillakaratne 81, S. Jayasuriya 57, A. Wharf 4-71). |
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