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The Test: My Life, and the Inside Story of the Greatest Ashes Series
Winner of the Wisden Book of the YearEighteen years, eight series, eight defeats. These are the facts. I look around the room. We’re a young team. Strauss, Flintoff, Vaughan, the new guy, Kevin Pietersen. None of us remember England holding the Ashes. We are a generation that have grown up in Australia’s shadow. In 2005 Simon Jones took part in the greatest Ashes series of all time. As a devastating fast bowler in a brave young England team, Jones went toe to toe with the might of the seemingly unbeatable Australians. Over the course of fifty-four days Simon would experience the greatest highs of his career, and plunge to the lowest depths. The series would change his life for ever. In chapters that alternate between an unforgettable, insider's account of each of the five Tests and the remainder of his life, Simon presents the raw and unvarnished truth behind international sport; the joy and the sacrifice, the physical and mental cost and the unrelenting pressure. Heroes emerge, and cricketing legends are made human.
- GenresSports
288 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 2, 2015
3 people are currently reading
31 people want to read
About the author
Simon Jones
1 bookThere is more than one author with this name
SIMON JONES MBE is a former professional cricketer who played for England, Glamorgan, Hampshire and Worcestershire. In 2005 he tore through the Australian batting order, swinging the ball at pace, and inspiring some of England's greatest ever victories as they regained the Ashes for the first time in almost twenty years. That series he dismissed every single Australian batsman apart from Glenn McGrath, taking 18 wickets at an average of 21. Injury forced him out of the final match at the Oval and prevented him from playing Test cricket again. He subsequently fought for eight years to return to the top level despite a series of further setbacks. Now retired, he lives in Cardiff with his wife Justine and his two young sons.
SIMON JONES MBE is a former professional cricketer who played for England, Glamorgan, Hampshire and Worcestershire. In 2005 he tore through the Australian batting order, swinging the ball at pace, and inspiring some of England's greatest ever victories as they regained the Ashes for the first time in almost twenty years. That series he dismissed every single Australian batsman apart from Glenn McGrath, taking 18 wickets at an average of 21. Injury forced him out of the final match at the Oval and prevented him from playing Test cricket again. He subsequently fought for eight years to return to the top level despite a series of further setbacks. Now retired, he lives in Cardiff with his wife Justine and his two young sons.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 5, 2023
The 2005 series is endlessly relivable, and Simon Jones was one of my favourite players in it. At first I wasn't confident about his abilities as a writer, but then I heard that ghostwriter Jon Hotten had done a great job at getting Jones' voice on the page. And that he has. The fast bowler mindset is evident throughout, for instance in the series of injuries Jones has inflicted on batsmen across his career, and starting as a teen: these injuries are described in the same currency as wickets, no hint of remorse, ever. Alongside the enjoyable accounts of each of the five tests, there's a parallel narrative about Jones' rise as a player, followed by the decline through repeated injuries, which also saw him unable to play in the final test of the series.
It's in the latter that the pathos lies. A telling moment is when the fast bowler is in a hospital's hyperbaric chamber along with others seeking its healing powers: "They have real problems that they didn't ask for or choose, and that they may not survive [gangrene and cancer are mentioned]. I'm worried about whether I can run up and bowl in a cricket match." Jones is worried about this because he doesn't know anything else to do with his working life. And for that reason he keeps at it, through another eight years of pain and setbacks, during which he never played for England again, before finally accepting the inevitable. At the time of writing the book, Jones doesn't seem to have any clear idea of what else he could possibly do with his life (he seems to have joined a private school as a sports teacher a few years later).
Towards the close of his own cricketing career, Colin Cowdrey asked himself "how he could ever justify spending a quarter of a century standing at first slip". There is something of this Beckettian ennui* in Jones's account. His answer to that ennui comes in the simple but strong bond he feels with both team mates and adversaries (this a book where, for once, the Acknowledgements are worth reading).
*Samuel Beckett was, as pub quizzers know, the only Nobel laureate to have played first-class cricket.
It's in the latter that the pathos lies. A telling moment is when the fast bowler is in a hospital's hyperbaric chamber along with others seeking its healing powers: "They have real problems that they didn't ask for or choose, and that they may not survive [gangrene and cancer are mentioned]. I'm worried about whether I can run up and bowl in a cricket match." Jones is worried about this because he doesn't know anything else to do with his working life. And for that reason he keeps at it, through another eight years of pain and setbacks, during which he never played for England again, before finally accepting the inevitable. At the time of writing the book, Jones doesn't seem to have any clear idea of what else he could possibly do with his life (he seems to have joined a private school as a sports teacher a few years later).
Towards the close of his own cricketing career, Colin Cowdrey asked himself "how he could ever justify spending a quarter of a century standing at first slip". There is something of this Beckettian ennui* in Jones's account. His answer to that ennui comes in the simple but strong bond he feels with both team mates and adversaries (this a book where, for once, the Acknowledgements are worth reading).
*Samuel Beckett was, as pub quizzers know, the only Nobel laureate to have played first-class cricket.
January 25, 2026
Interesting read about one of the less talked about team members in 2005. The discussion of his difficulties are the best parts of the book. A 5* would have dove into those parts more rather that skimming them as is done here. The structure of alternating chapters between the series and other key events was great but more but longer ‘key event’ chapters would have been ideal. Still very readable.
June 2, 2019
Really enjoyed this, primarily for the way it brought back memories of the 2005 Ashes series. Not sure I particularly liked Jones by the end though.
August 13, 2019
Great book, great bowler, great(est) series
May 24, 2020
Great memoir of 2005.
October 5, 2015
Takes a no frills approach, built around play-by-play accounts of each session of the 2005 Ashes series. So it's not a celebrity memoir, this (despite the publishers' obsession with Kevin Pietersen) and requires a decent knowledge of cricket language and characters. No dumbed-down explanations of what Lord's is. For me, that's a good thing.
He's a fairly modest character (off the field at least) and I'm not sure the writer's nailed down a distinctive voice for him. But the asides are very good - how Jones discovered his speed and coaches helped him build on it; the rhythms and emotions of taking part in one of the most intense test series ever; the psychological effect of minor and serious injury, and the realities of dealing with a pro sport career cut short, even with serious wealth following into the game.
Like all cricket books it has a bad case of appendicitis, ending with pages and pages of scorecards, stats and padding. The sequencing of the book feels contrived, but at least it spreads out the match-report chapters, and I approve of the Pooh Bear ("in which...") chapter headings.
He's a fairly modest character (off the field at least) and I'm not sure the writer's nailed down a distinctive voice for him. But the asides are very good - how Jones discovered his speed and coaches helped him build on it; the rhythms and emotions of taking part in one of the most intense test series ever; the psychological effect of minor and serious injury, and the realities of dealing with a pro sport career cut short, even with serious wealth following into the game.
Like all cricket books it has a bad case of appendicitis, ending with pages and pages of scorecards, stats and padding. The sequencing of the book feels contrived, but at least it spreads out the match-report chapters, and I approve of the Pooh Bear ("in which...") chapter headings.
November 19, 2017
With the Ashes just days away I’m getting myself into the mood by reading cricket stuff. This autobiography by Simon Jones offers a vivid insight of the 2005 Ashes series that most cricket fans will know back to front anyway. Knowing what happens doesn’t reduce the enjoyment of hearing the tale through the eyes of a star performer whose injury-dominated ins and outs had such a bearing on the matches. Jones’s pace and technique were a unique contributor to Ashes success. The alcohol and lad-fuelled backdrop while of the time, feels a far cry from what’s expected of professional sportsmen today, eh Ben Stokes?
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews