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About Me

Adrian Jones

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Played and coached St Kilda Cricket Club

My Activity

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Q: Hi Josh, is 14 years old and he has never had any coaching and hasn’t finished growing. He rips in and has a great follow through. His take off landing is a little unconventional. Josh’s dad and I have been discussing should he try and iron it out or embrace it. We’d be grateful for any guidance.

A: Some great advice on offer. I would add that he could look at his running mechanics. As he runs in his bowling arm remains straight by his side. If it mirrored the more natural swinging movement of his left arm it would help smooth out the stuttering steps as he approaches the crease and then he could lower his load up position to around head height instead of above it when he is in the air. This would help with balance as when both arms are up while airborne it challenges young players core strength and they lose momentum towards the target.
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Q: St Bede’s College in Melbourne v Crusaders XI - 1988

The Crusaders consisted of David Johnstone, Shaun Graf, Gerard Cull and Aravinda De Silva.

St Bede’s team won the 1988 Associated Catholic Colleges Premiership vs De La Salle in the final match of the year. Future St Kilda Cricket Club players Adam Ryan and Damian Scales played for de La Salle.

Paul Brown was the standout player in Victoria of this age group but tragically died of cancer at 21.

Jones (St Kilda), McEvoy (Frankston), Brown (Waverley/Dandenong), Johnstone (Prahran/Dandenong/Haw-Waverley) all went onto play Victorian Premier cricket.

McEvoy has been the leading sporting journalist for Leader Newspapers for the past 25 years while Dr Ben Burke and Chiropractor Kingsley Anthonisz are leaders in their field in the local area.

J. Honan and O. Lalor are leading teachers at St Bede’s
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Q: Who is the one player from Melbourne District Cricket who played between 1980 and 2000 you’d want as the first player selected if you had the opportunity to start your own Victorian Premier Cricket first grade cricket team?
A: Warren Whiteside
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Q: Adrian Jones - my best cricket captain

Although I was lucky to play under several excellent captains it would be hard to overlook the man who led our team during an extremely successful era and winning four premierships I was involved in at St Kilda Cricket Club.

Tim O’Sullivan was a terrific manager of ambitious cricketers. He did have a team of considerable talent which included a minimum of 4 state squad members at any one time. Sadly, they were mostly batsmen but that’s ok!

Not all players were playing for Victoria so when they all available to play club cricket Tim was able to manage the team and specifically the batting order so that all the batsmen were given the opportunity to score runs but also maintain a team ethos of playing for each other and also looking to win games of cricket which is what we all craved.

He was a good, clear communicator that ensured that everyone was on the same page going into a match but also that he would be the decision maker of how the team played.

He was also a thorough listener….and he needed to be!

He would often receive ideas and advice from players of significant experience within the playing group and he would need to weed out certain pieces of advice that may have had ‘self-interest’ attached or were too negative and not taking a team forward to get better, even by the smallest of percentages.

And despite being able to manage all these situations Tim was at his best on the field in the heat of battle usually when the circumstances were at their most challenging.

He scored a match winning century in tough conditions against Hawthorn-Waverley CC in a semi-final when no other batsman could even slightly look settled at the crease. Despite poor weather he also encountered a change to the playing conditions with play being held up on occasions that may have caused him to take risks too great to try and boost the run rate. That innings stood out clearly during that game and lead us to the first of four premierships the following week.