Dean Jones – an exciting, aggressive and flamboyant right handed Victorian batsman, who came to dominate the one-day version of the game in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, but was controversially dropped from the test side just when he seemed to be at his peak. Jones debuted for Victoria during a difficult time for his state at around the same time as Simon O’Donnell and Merv Hughes made their debut. Good Sheffield Shield performances saw Jones tour the West Indies with the Australian side in 1984. His test debut came on a wet, green Port-of-Spain wicket against a West Indian line up that included Garner, Holding and Marshall.

His place in cricket history was assured when he made his way back into the test team in the crucial no. 3 spot during the Indian tour of 1986. In the first test at Madras, in stifling heat, Deano played one of the most courageous knocks of all time, compiling 210 runs. When his innings was over, Jones was badly dehydrated and was placed on a saline drip. This match was to become the second ever tied test match. For an outside observer, this match was probably the highlight of the Jones career, although a sensational 1989 tour of England would also rank highly.

A poor 1990/1 Ashes series, followed by disappointing results against India in 1991/2 saw Jones’ place in the Test team come into question, but 150 at the WACA in the last test of the series, followed by a good tour of Sri Lanka appeared to mark a return to form. In a controversial move though, Jones was made 12th man for the 1st Test in 1992/93 against the West Indies, and dropped altogether for the following test. He has not played a Test match since. Throughout much of this period, Jones was regarded as one of the world’s premier one day batsmen, with an average wavering around 50 and a strike rate in the high 70’s. Jones retired from one day cricket after being dropped from the one day side during the 1994 tour of South Africa. Jones, who preferred the longer version of the game, is probably going to be remembered as a "One day specialist", despite being instrumental in Australia’s rise to Test match prominence. During Dean’s career he scored 3631 Test runs with a highest score of 216 and made 11 Test centuries.