Plight of Jeff Jones offers cautionary tale for Jofra Archer and England

W ilf Wooller could have been talking about Jofra Archer, had he not been discussing a cricketing elbow injury over a quarter of a century before his birth. “Cricketers have had this before and got over it, but for a fast bowler it is different,” Wooller said. “Even a medium-pacer might get away with it but with anyone who bowls really quickly the joint has to take tremendous strain.”

What Wooller didn’t know about sport wasn’t worth knowing – one of the great athletic polymaths, he played rugby union and squash for Wales, turned out at centre-forward for Cardiff City, and was Glamorgan’s opening bowler and captain for 13 years, their secretary for 30 and their president for another six – and the particular elbow he was vexed by belonged to Jeff Jones.

It is increasingly hard not to not to think of Jones when the latest Archer newsflash pops up, and the England bowler jets home from another injury-affected foreign trip. For Jones was – a familiar story, this – a brilliant fast bowler whose career was derailed in his mid-20s by an injury to the elbow of his bowling arm that simply would not stop hurting, and spent two years embarking on a succession of aborted comebacks, every one breathlessly reported in the nation’s media. It is here that we hope the pair’s stories diverge, because for Jones the injury issues continued until it became obvious that his career would end before they did.

Archer has played 13 Tests and taken 42 wickets, two fewer on both counts than the number Jones had reached when the wheels came off. He ended the fifth Test against West Indies in March 1968 a hero, his unbeaten 12-ball innings of nought at No 11 helping his side to the draw that sealed a 1-0 series victory, but it was this game that