Melanie Jones (born 11 August 1972,

Barnstaple Barnstaple ( or ) is a river-port town in North Devon, England, at the River Taw's lowest crossing point before the Bristol Channel. From the 14th century, it was licensed to export wool and won great wealth. Later it imported Irish wool, bu ...

, Devon, England) is an English-born Australian cricket commentator and former

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er who represented Australia women's national cricket team.

Early life

Jones was born in England and moved with her mother to Melbourne,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

when she was three months old. Her father, a West Indian, stayed back in England and she did not meet him until the age of 16. However, he had a big influence on her early life, particularly in attracting her to cricket. She was introduced to cricket by her high school geography teacher (the father of Australian Test player Peter Handscomb).

Playing career

A right-handed batter and occasional right-arm medium pace bowler, she played 5

Test matches Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to: * Test cricket * Test match (indoor cricket) * Test match (rugby union) * Test match (rugby league) * Test match (association football) ...

for

between 1998 and 2003, scoring 251 runs, highlighted by a 131 on debut against England in August 1998. Jones was the 134th woman to play Test cricket for Australia. She has also played 61

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...

s for Australia, scoring 1028 runs with an average in the low-twenties. Jones played

limited overs cricket Limited overs cricket, also known as one-day cricket or white ball cricket, is a version of the sport of cricket in which a match is generally completed in one day. There are a number of formats, including List A cricket (8-hour games), Twenty ...

in England for the now defunct Lancashire and Cheshire Women cricket team between 1994 and 1997 and the Surrey County women's cricket team between 2003 and 2004. She played 122 games for the

Victorian Spirit The Victoria Women cricket team, previously known as Victorian Spirit, is the women's representative cricket team for the Australian State of Victoria. They play their home games at Junction Oval, St Kilda, Melbourne. They compete in the W ...

in the Australian Women's National Cricket League, and then five Women's Twenty20 cricket games for the Tasmanian Roar.

Commentary career

Cricket Australia put Jones' name forward in 2007 to commentate on the women's Twenty20 international, covered by Australia's Channel 9. Since then, Jones has commentated on women's internationals covered by Channel 9, as well as providing commentary for men's and women's games on ABC Radio. In 2015, Jones was announced as one of four female commentators to commentate on the

2015 Indian Premier League The 2015 season of the Indian Premier League, also known as IPL 8 or, for sponsorship reasons, Pepsi IPL 2015, was the eighth season of the IPL, a Twenty20 cricket league established by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in 2007. ...

. Later in 2015, Jones joined the Channel 10 coverage of inaugural season of the Women's Big Bash League, and also provided boundary commentary during the 2015-16 Big Bash League, along with boundary commentary for

Pakistan Super League 2017 The 2017 Pakistan Super League (also known as PSL 2 or, for sponsorship reasons, HBL PSL 2017), was the second season of the Pakistan Super League, a franchise Twenty20 cricket league established by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in 2016. ...

. She also lent her voice to the Ashes Cricket 17 game. In May 2018, she signed with Fox Sports. During the 2020/2021 summer of cricket, She commentated the WBBL and Women's International Cricket with Channel 7

Personal life

Outside of cricket, Jones works for a sports management company. Jones has worked as an ambassador with Australian charity, Red Dust, which promotes health initiatives in remote Aboriginal communities. In 2017 Jones was inducted to the Victorian Honour Roll of Women, while in the

2019 Australia Day Honours The 2019 Australia Day Honours are appointments Australian honours system, to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by Australian citizens. The list was announced on 26 January 2019 by the Governor General of Australia, Pet ...

, Jones was awarded the Order of Australia Medal, for services to cricket and the community.

References

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