Jess Jonassen dropped from Australia team, Brisbane Heat squad, cricket news, video،
Jess Jonassen has been an automatic selection in the Australian starting XI for almost a decade, but the Queenslander is under increasing pressure from her fellow spinners to keep her place.
The left-armer is Australia’s most prolific T20 spinner in history, with 96 scalps at 19.62 and an economy rate of 5.76. She is a four-time T20 World Cup champion, a Commonwealth Games gold medalist and a two-time winner of the Women’s Big Bash League.
However, Jonassen was left out of the Australian squad for the final four matches of the recent white-ball series against the West Indies, with the national selectors favoring leg-spinners Georgia Wareham and Alana King.
It comes after West Indies captain Hayley Matthews feasted on the 30-year-old’s bowling in two T20 matches at North Sydney Oval, including a quarter boundary in the record penultimate run chase.
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Speaking to Fox Cricket this week, Jonassen admitted his bowling was not up to standard, admitting the team needed to make a change to combat Matthews.
“It’s really cutthroat right now,” Jonassen said.
“Our team has been successful for so long with some strong up-and-coming talent as well.
“In those first few T20 matches, I wasn’t executing as well as I would have liked or what the team needed.
“We just had to change something in the bowling stocks, because the batters were doing their job.
“As a bowling unit, we just weren’t where we wanted to be. Also being a spin bowler makes it quite difficult, especially in the shortest format.
“With Kim (Garth) coming in and performing the way she did as well, it was pretty difficult to be able to break in, especially with such a short tour.”
Most Women’s T20I wickets for Australia
130 — Megan Schutt
123 — Ellyse Perry
96 — Jess Jonassen
60 — Lisa Sthalekar
59 — Ash Gardner
Jonassen finds herself in the rare position of fighting to retain her place on the national team, but it’s not foreign territory for her. After suffering a leg injury in 2018, she was replaced by Victorian spinner Sophie Molineux, who helped Australia win that year’s T20 World Cup in the West Indies.
Molineux’s impressive outings in canary yellow left pundits wondering whether Jonassen’s international career was in danger – but it certainly wasn’t.
Fox Cricket commentator and former Australian cricketer Mel Jones compared Jonassen’s plight to superstar all-rounder Ellyse Perry, who was left out of the national T20 team last year before transforming her game and breaking through a path in the team.
“Beware of the senior player who loves playing for Australia and gets dropped,” Jones told Fox Cricket.
“It’s great, not for JJ, but for someone to continually be challenged. It was Ellyse Perry, who found herself out of T20 and changed her game.
“That’s one of the reasons why the Australian team is so good. They are constantly challenged. “And so now it’s a challenge for JJ.”
Jonassen was Australia’s white-ball bowler for several years, responsible for closing out the innings with accurate and deceptive spells. That’s why his lack of execution against the West Indies was such a surprise.
“I take great pride in being able to close out games in high-pressure moments,” Jonassen said.
“I’m working very hard to refine a few elements of my game and get back into good shape with the ball.
“In T20 cricket it’s easy to fall into the trap of just trying to slide the ball as flat as possible to limit the score, but there is always a place to give the ball some really good shape, in going up and down, not the same length.
“It’s still a work in progress, but it’s still about remembering and recognizing the things that worked for me in the past when I was playing at the top of my game, and not comparing myself to other bowlers of the whole world.”
Jonassen, who represented Delhi Capitals in the inaugural edition of the Women’s Premier League in India this year, admitted that she and her teammates were suffering from mental fatigue after England’s recent Ashes campaign, which ended by an 8-8 draw.
“It was such a complete series,” she said.
“Talking to a few girls, we didn’t really know the impact or toll it had taken on us until we stopped and went home.
“I was quite frustrated, knowing we weren’t playing our best cricket… knowing we weren’t as sharp or as polished as we usually are, it was very frustrating. The finer touches just didn’t seem to be there.
“It was one of those trips where that little lack of finishing hurt us, which probably wasn’t the case in the past.”
Jonassen’s attention turns to the WBBL, where she hopes to lead the Brisbane Heat to a third title. However, the spinner will also keep an eye on the upcoming multi-format series in India, which will begin immediately after the conclusion of the WBBL.
Jonassen intends to gradually increase his bowling workload throughout the T20 tournament, taking advantage of the hybrid wicket at the National Cricket Campus in Brisbane.
On the swing decks of the subcontinent she is expected to form a four-pronged rotating attack with Wareham, King and Ash Gardner, but until the team is balanced there may only be room for three strike fitters in the starting lineup.
“It’s one of those determining factors to perform well, to make the Australian teams,” Jonassen said.
“There’s so much cricket between now and this India series and even beyond, it’s so easy to get caught up in what’s coming as opposed to what you’re actually doing here and now.
“I think my main goal is to play my part to the best of my ability for the success of the Brisbane Heat. I know if I do that it will lead to me going on Australian tours.
“It doesn’t necessarily lead to being in the team, but it’s always a priority, always a driver, but it’s not my only motivation at the moment.”
The Heat kick off their WBBL campaign on Friday, facing the Melbourne Renegades at Junction Oval from 3pm AEDT.
Most WBBL wickets
138 — Jess Jonassen (BH)
137 — Molly Strano (HH/MR)
126 — Amanda-Jade Wellington (AS)
114 — Marizanne Kapp (PS/SS)
114 – Megan Schutt (AS)
Additional reporting by Jono Baruch
