Adrian Jones (cricketer)

Adrian Nicholas Jones (born 22 July 1961) is a former cricketer who played first-class and List A cricket for Sussex and Somerset in the English game from 1981 to 1993 and for Border cricket team in South Africa in 1981/82. He was born at Woking, Surrey and educated at Seaford College in Sussex.

Jones was a pugnacious right-arm fast-medium bowler and a tail-end left-handed batsman.

Jones made his Sussex debut in 1981 and in his fourth first-class match took the wickets of Graeme Wood, Trevor Chappell and Kim Hughes in a return of four for 68 against the Australians. On the strength of that performance he was brought into the England Youth team less than two weeks later to play in the third Youth "Test" against the Indian Youth team. In the winter of 1981-82, Jones was in South Africa where he made two appearances for the weak Boland team in matches in the SAB Bowl competition, both of which were lost by an innings. There were few first-class games and few wickets for Jones in the 1982 and 1983 seasons, and he played in only one List A match in each of the two seasons (and was not used as a bowler in his one one-day match in 1982).

But in the second half of the 1984 season, he began playing fairly regularly for the Sussex first team, and against Gloucestershire he took five second innings wickets for 29 runs: this would prove to be his best bowling performance for Sussex. In both 1985 and 1986, Jones played in around half of Sussex's first-class matches, but in a county which boasted Test players Imran Khan and Tony Pigott, as well as Garth Le Roux among its bowlers, his place was never assured, and he was injured for part of the 1986 season. He was a more regular player in 1986 in List A limited overs matches, and in the game against Nottinghamshire in May 1986 in the 40-over Sunday League competition, he took seven for 41 (out of eight Notts wickets that fell). These were not only the best List A figures of Jones's career, but they remain as of 2010 the best figures in a List A by a Sussex cricketer. Despite being awarded his Sussex county cap in 1986, he left the county at the end of the season and joined Somerset for 1987.