From Zero To Hero: A Redemption Story For The Ages

Despite a rocky history with school cricket, shifting from team to team and place to place with the tempo of a pronghorn, Jones has remained an emblem for elite Taylors’ cricket. Upon arrival at the school in late 2019, the man from Morocco immediately cemented his place in the highest team for his year group, deservedly performing with both leather and willow in hand alongside the crème de la crème of the sport at the school. Alas, Jones’ career grinded to a halt for the next two years as it suffered a hit from the pandemic harder than his signature hook shot thumping the ball over deep square for a maximum. 

Thus, when the 2023 season rolled around, on that fateful day in April, the freshly mowed cricket field was greeted with quavery legs from Jones. Behind the smile more lustrous than the hot England sun above always plastered on his face, lay an apphrehensive frown uncertain for the season ahead. And these nerves managed to pierce their way through the seemingly indestrustible wall of confidence Jones had managed to cultivate after years of playing the sport during the first match of the season on April 29th. 

Whitgift School was the opposition, an ominous one with a remarkable record from a cricketing perspective, having won all of their games prior to the matchup with Taylors. The squad from Northwood headed to Croydon to greet their opposition at home, and two hours into the afternoon the toss was complete, and it was decided that Whitgift would try their luck with the bat. Warm conditions and a glorious green pitch, the stage was set to engage for Taylors to engage in battle with their opposition in their debut match of the season, in the shortest format of the game.

However, Taylors were unable to wield their bowling attack as powerfully as they would have liked. With four of their bowlers finishing with an economy rate of greater than 10.00, Taylors ended up conceding a hefty sum of 175 runs for a total of just 3 wickets, more than half of which were scored with boundaries. 

And so the quavering legs of Jones began to quaver even more. After witnessing a stroke-filled innings from the top order, managing to stack up nigh on 100 runs, it was his time to step onto the middle. One of the toughest assignments issued on a cricket pitch is chasing down a large score, and Jones stepped onto the pitch in the 16th over carrying his team’s heavy hopes of conquering such a mission on his shoulders.

He approached the crease, and took his guard. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he began to scan the field in an attempt to plan his innings, and upon looking around the pitch he noticed the scoreboard in the distance, which displayed in large characters: 

81 RUNS REQUIRED OFF 27 BALLS

It was at this point something unprecedented occurred. For the first time, the unwavering smile that defined Jones’ character began to fade, as the possibility of losing their first game of the season entered his mind. Unable to let this thought go, beads of sweat began to trickle down his face in greater volume as he tapped his bat behind his foot, signalling to the bowler that he was ready to face his first ball. In reality, however, he was far from ready. As the bowler left his mark and began to sprint towards Jones, the sharp image of a tall teenager in Whitgift uniform was replaced with a blurry figure slowly getting larger and larger as it approached the opposite end of the pitch, before slowing down as a peculiar, spherical object was released and began advancing towards Jones at an almost invisible speed, until the nightmare finally came to an end with the satisfying *clunk* of leather meeting ash. 

This sound was soon overthrown, however, by a defeaning roar of happiness which erupted across the ground moments later; this time, however, the nightmare had only just began for Jones. For when he returned his eyes to the scoreboard, the number of wickets Taylors had lost had increased from 3 to 4, and his personal score read:

0 RUNS, 1 BALL FACED

Jones’ worst fears had become a reality, one which any cricketer would find difficult to face. After taking on one of the toughest tasks in a cricket game, he had returned after a mere few minutes bearing one of the most shameful accolades to hold as a cricketer: a Golden Duck. Jones had entered the game at its climax, and had been dismissed after facing just one ball, as a swing and a miss of the bat resulted in his middle stump being cartwheeled back to the pavilion where Jones himself arrived a few moments later, where he was forced to watch his team suffer a gruelling 33-run defeat in their first game of the season.

It is not the subpar performance of Jones in his first game that gained a full article dedicated towards him, however – instead, the most gripping phase of his 2023 season came immediately following the catastrophic defeat at Whitgift. MS Dhoni, a legend of the game of cricket and the country of India, once declared: 

Face the failure until the failure fails to face you.

Such elegant words seem fitting for what happens next to a disheartened Jones. After taking on an arduous task on the cricket pitch at the end of April, Jones embarked on yet another difficult challenge as a sportsman: responding and recovering from failures. This time, however, Jones emerged victorious. Throughout the next fortnight, he was unstoppable. Jones was always the first face at practice, and the last to leave. Within seconds of the coach issuing batting privileges for net sessions Jones will have whisked his pads on and ready to face the bowlers’ worst. After every fielding session, he emerged with the war scars of a valiant fielder, with grass and mud stains tracked across the entirety of his lower body. A new epoch had begun for Jones; and his first real test would come on May 20th, where Taylors would face off against Haileybury School in a twenty over match at their home ground. 

This time, the pressure was greater than ever as Jones would lead the side as captain against the Haileybury men. Truly a changed man, Jones thrust himself to the top of the order without hesitation, and having elected to bat first stepped his freshly cleaned spikes onto the field at around 2:30pm on a beautiful Saturday in May. Indeed, the realm of superstitions is an extremely dubious one; however the theatre of play on this particular day seemed like nothing but a prophecy for what would follow. The sun sat peacefully at the topmost of the sky, its rays forming a golden pathway across the horizon. As Jones confidently entered this path, something unprecedented happened again – this time more miraculous than the last, however, for it was the return of Jones’ characteristic grin on his face, this time one of excitement and determination. As he stepped onto the pitch, his leg was quavering no longer, instead gallopping pertinaciously towards the middle where there was an aura of optimism for the innings ahead. 

Jones took his guard. He darted his eyes up and down, right and left of the field, analysing the opposition’s plan of attack. With an assured nod to his partner, he tapped his bat behind his foot, and fixed his eyes on the bowler tentatively making his way towards the crease to execute the first delivery of the game. What the opening Haileybury bowler did not know was that the only execution taking place that fateful day would be at the hands of Jones, who wielded his bat with the might of a gladiator and the elegance of a swordsman. Just the third ball he faced was dispatched to the leg-side boundary for four. The next boundary came in quick succession, as Jones expertly sliced the ball between the men at point and cover for another four. His next victim had set up camp at mid-on, and after a swift punch of the bat the fielder could do nothing but stand and admire Jones’ masterful stroke play as the ball whizzed past him to the long boundary. The massacre was not over; a few balls later Jones showed brilliant use of the feet to free some space on the on-side, timing his pull shot to perfection as the ball sailed past square-leg for a one-bounce four. As if he had not embarrassed the opposition enough, Jones’ merciless rampage continued, as a few overs later he managed to pull off a spectacular cover drive to score another quadruple runs, something which would place a spectator in doubt as to whether they were watching a secondary school cricket game or an international thriller with Virat Kohli at the crease. In the form of his lifetime, Jones dealt a final devastating blow to the Haileybury side before being forced to leave the crease undefeated. Facing the 30th ball of his innings, Jones’ eyes widened with excitement as the bowler delivered a ball in the slot, and Jones could almost hear it begging to be sent back to the boundary. The gentleman that he is, Jones answered its cries, and thumped the ball back over the bowler’s head with a glorious shot for a six. Like the previous match, a huge roar across the ground filled Jones’ ears; this time, however, it was the Taylors’ side that cheered, and they cheered for the spectacular innings Jones had delivered for his side, a magnificent 35* off 30 balls which involved every shot in the playbook to execute a total of six boundaries, and ultimately a match-winning innings before being retired and eventually winning the game with his side by 18 runs. 

The story of Reece Jones is truly one for the ages. After a rollercoaster-like career as a cricket player for Taylors’, Jones suffered the brunt of the pandemic like many others, and returned to the cricket pitch in almost a state of frenzy, scoring 0 runs off 1 ball in his first game back. However, his rollercoaster did not end there, for soon Jones went from zero to hero: after a tremendous display of discipline and passion in the following two weeks of training, Jones managed to translate this at the crease and quash any doubts about his form or cricketing ability, delivering a wonderful captain’s knock consisting of six of the most glorious boundaries ever struck by a batsman. Perhaps a fitting nickname, therefore, must be established for Jones, in order to encapsulate his incredible story – if ever you spot him scoring runs at the local ground, or even on a walk beside it, make sure to greet the hero Reece ‘Redemption’ Jones.