INTERVIEW
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Being put in a position to fill the shoes of a legend. Ask Brad Haddin and Rishabh Pant; they will tell you how tough it is to replace legendary figures. Especially when you are 20, your name is Amy Jones, and the legendary figure in question is Sarah Taylor. When Jones took her first major step towards the game, Taylor had already established herself as the best wicketkeeper across genders.
Jones’ introduction to international cricketer was tougher because she had barely kept wickets till then, only for Warwickshire and then later at Junior Super Fours, where she represented Junior Sapphires.
“Suddenly, I was with the national team [as back-up wicketkeeper] and travelling around, it was just a bit of a whirlwind at first. I couldn’t believe it. It was a bit surreal that I was spending time with people I had watched growing up. I guess I had to watch them quite a bit before I got to keep,” Amy Jones recollected her early call-up in a Cricket.com exclusive.
It wasn’t just tricky; it was a situation that left the 20-year-old with no choice but to work incredibly hard on her batting, which, according to her, was the only way she could get into the setup.
“Like you said, my expectations were very realistic when it is Sarah [Taylor] with the gloves. She’s the best in the world. So, I always thought that I had to get into the team with my batting. Obviously, I was in and out with the bat and experienced some good contributions and some tough games, as we all have,” she added.
“I think a lot of good came out of being a backup to Sarah. Having her set the bar so high definitely motivated me to keep pushing and see how good I could be. It is a bittersweet feeling, a long journey with a lot of feelings. A funny time to start the career,” Jones spoke about the early days of her career.
It wasn’t the cricketing side of things that had made it tricky for the young Jones but rather the ‘mental side of things’. As a 20-year-old, there was no sort of guarantee that she was going to get picked game after game, but at the same time, when picked, there were unreal expectations from her to perform at the highest level.
A combination that has seen several careers being broken down.
“I guess the frustration that comes with that is very difficult because I think it is a tricky mental side. When you do get picked, you don’t want to be there thinking if I don’t perform, I’ll be back on the sidelines again. It is all about how you can get yourself into a space where you let go of the outcome and think of the process. These days, there’s a lot of talk about mental health in the camps,” she opened up on her mental health back then.
“I definitely felt a lot of pressure at the start of my career, which restricted me, and I didn't play the free-flowing cricket that I enjoy. Maybe I should have been more ambitious with that wicketkeeper spot back then,” she added.
Eleven years later, however, Jones has emerged out of Sarah’s shadows and established herself as a vital cog in the England setup. She’s earned praise from all corners, including England’s legendary skipper Heather Knight, who has gone on record praising the ‘invaluable’ Jones.
What’s changed over the years? Of course, the endless hard work that has shaped Jones’s career is great, but what else? According to the wicketkeeper, the changing belief system has played a huge role in Jones finding her own feet in women’s cricket.
She also elaborated that even her power-hitting skills have stemmed from her keeping things calm and simple.
“I think a lot of it [power-hitting] comes from belief. So if you're relaxed, and it's a free-flow swing of the bat, it goes further. It's like, sometimes, the harder you try and hit it, the worse it gets. There's definitely a balance and understanding, I guess, of your own body and how best to swing. It might sound funny, but how best to swing the bat in order to hit the ball the furthest,” she said while explaining her swing.
“Because it's not as simple as just ‘swing harder’. A lot of time has been put into that from a coaching perspective. I remember, it would have been a good few years ago now, but the coaches would sort of analyse individual swings, and there'd be a bit of biomechanics to it and looking at bat lifts,” she added.
The biggest difference between when she started playing cricket and now is that the batters have become increasingly aggressive. Hitting the ball in the air is no longer considered a risk but has become a common occurrence and a go-to shot for several youngsters.
“You look at the likes of Freya Kemp, Dani Gibson, and the young players coming through; they can absolutely whack it, and the confidence that they've got is brilliant, and they can easily clear the ropes. So I guess, you know, like you say, whereas before, there was one or two strong batters that could always clear the ropes.
“Now, you see more and more youngsters coming through who have that skill straight away, which I think is the difference,” Jones noted.
Over the last four years, there’s one aspect that Jones has worked hard on, and that’s her ability to find the gaps behind the wicket. If you have keenly followed English cricket, then you would be aware of the Amy Jones speciality - scoops and reverse sweeps.
Since 2020, 12% of her total runs have all come from behind the wicket, either through the paddle sweep, the reverse sweep, the scoop or the reverse scoop. It is often the upper cut over the wicketkeeper if she doesn’t play any of these shots.
That has instantly drawn comparisons between her and England men’s white-ball captain Jos Buttler.
“I think, I'm not sure about that comparison [between her and Buttler], personally, but I think hitting 360 is a real strength of our whole team. I think that is something that can separate us from other teams,” Jones pushed away the comparisons between her and Buttler.
Is it a cultural thing, or is it just a thing restricted to these two wicketkeepers?
“Now you see loads of teams do it brilliantly. But I think it's been a strength of ours [England] for a while, even in domestic cricket. And I think it's so important because it just, you know, it makes you harder to bowl, like, you can access all different areas.
“You know, you can use it to get your boundaries or even just to move the field and open up other areas that might be even easier to hit. A real obvious one is, you know, when a spinner comes on and you want mid-wicket out, you paddle or reverse, and mid-wicket comes out and then you've got the whole of the leg side to pick your gaps. So, it's a great boundary option. And it's also great to manipulate the field. So I think it's a huge asset,” she added.
Growing up and playing all her childhood cricket in Warwickshire, you might wonder where Jones gets her game against quality spinners. Since her debut, Jones has struck at a far quicker pace (131.82) against spinners than she has done against pacers (106.44.).
You might think that it is because of her batting position that she doesn’t have a choice but to take on spinners. Well, actually, the 31-year-old worked insanely hard during her formative years when she was spending far too much time on the bench to improve upon her game against spin.
What was maybe a chink in her armour turned out to be her biggest strength over the years.
“I think it was that period when I was in and out of the team. I spent a lot of time in the middle order, where I worked on my spin game. It sort of flipped from a weakness to a strength, sheerly from the volume of work put into it,” Jones recollected.
107 T20I appearances later, and 50 of them coming at No.5 or 6 later, Jones has finally cracked that mantra of succeeding lower down the order. So much so that she’s heading into the World Cup with a real eye on the trophy, including even going on the record saying ‘I want to finish games for England’.
“I’m pretty confident in my role at 6, I feel like I have done it for a good length of time now. I have had different bits of success in different conditions as well. I’m feeling very confident ahead of the World Cup that I can contribute. I think I get a lot of confidence from being the senior on this side. I see the responsibility, and if it gets down to me, I want to be the one to get the side over the line,” the wicketkeeper-batter said.
So, how does someone measure the degree of success, especially when they face 12-14 balls every clash?
“I think the way I like to look at it is I would use being impact performance. Like, can I have an impact on this game? Because I think, obviously, batting at six, you don't know how many balls you're going to face, how many runs you're going to need to get. Sometimes, it's just getting the team over the lines in, like, you know, varying difficulties of chases,” she said.
Jones and England’s challenges don’t end there. They have to brave their opponent, their group, and then the heat, which can be a real deal-breaker in a tournament like the T20 World Cup, where the turnaround time is relatively short.
This is especially true for England, a country where even varying degrees of 26-28 degrees Celsius could be considered a ‘heat wave’.
“Yeah, the heat is a big factor. A lot of our support staff work really hard during our games and training in cooling methods. We've got a lot of ice vests and ice towels,” she spoke about the heat.
“And, you know, the 10-over drink to break is going to be hugely important. I think where if you get it wrong as an individual, you really get exposed because it's very taxing. From a playing perspective, we've found the conditions [Abu Dhabi] so far to be pretty skiddy. They were definitely skiddy in Abu Dhabi and then a bit slower since we got to Dubai, but they were fairly similar,” she said.
Amy Jones only got into cricket because of the social aspect, but now the focus has shifted to a larger event—the T20 World Cup. While she might have already proved that she’s no longer an understudy, the World Cup gives her a real chance of becoming a national hero.
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