Against Hampshire in a recent Friends Provident 50-over match, Simon Jones clocked 91mph, blasting batsmen away and reducing others merely to fearful scorelessness © Getty Images

For British cricketers at least, the need to keep up with the Joneses has never been the most inspiring means of motivation. Only five members of the tribe – Arthur, Alan, Geraint, Jeff and Simon - have played for England. Illness, injury and sudden lapses cost four of them dear; Alan was simply stripped of his status.

In other words, therefore, he amassed a hell of a lot of first-class runs, all 36,049 of them, without being capped. Has any batsman worked so hard, so fruitfully, for so little recognition? Not so far as the statisticians are concerned. The three-sentence “note” at the top of page 241 of the latest Wisden is a masterclass in pithy heartlessness:

“In 1970 England played five first-class matches against the Rest of the World after the cancellation of South Africa’s tour. Players were awarded England caps, but the matches are no longer considered to have Test status. Alan Jones (born 4.11.1938) made his only appearance for England in this series, scoring 5 and 0; he did not bowl and took no catches.”

That that notice appeared in the good yellow book at all was thanks to my good friend Huw Richards, a lifelong Glamorgan follower, whose sense of injustice on Jones’s behalf had been festering for decades. Some may have been surprised to see no mention of the “fact” that the opener had been asked to return his England cap, blazer and sweater, but Huw found that to be a load of urban mythical rot.

Jones's misfortune was twofold. For one thing, facing the new ball at Lord’s in the opening “Test” of the Guiness-sponsored series, he went toe-to-toe with that Sobers wannabe Mike Procter, who blew him away in each innings, with extreme and grossly unfair prejudice. The Lord’s mandarins, though, proved even more unplayable.

Granted, Jones’s fate on the field wasn’t quite so horrid as that endured by poor old Jack MacBryan, who in 1924 fell foul the Manchester rains: his sole Test was reduced to 165 minutes’ play and he remains the only man to have played in one without any stats to show for it: he neither batted, bowled nor took a catch. Still, at least MacBryan had the satisfaction of knowing his appearance was legit. Jones thought his was, too – for two years.

In July 1972 the ICC decided, in its strictly finite wisdom, that those five pulsating games, comprising one of the most thrilling series of the era, did not pass muster as official Tests. But if they did not pit nation against nation, why on earth sanction them in the first place? It was joined-up thinking of that calibre that invited Kerry Packer to storm the gates.

For those who appreciate the finer things in cricketing life, it was as if we had been told to delete some of our most cherished memories: Garry Sobers’s 6 for 21 and 183 at Lord’s; that sumptuous stand between Sobers and Graeme Pollock at The Oval; Eddie Barlow’s four-in-four at Headingley; Barry Richards and Procter’s last performances on the (allegedly) highest stage. For Geoff Boycott and Derek Underwood it was even more painful. Boycott’s 157 at The Oval didn’t count, preventing him from holding the English Test record of 23 centuries rather than sharing it with Wally Hammond and Colin Cowdrey; Underwood was left with 297 five-day victims rather than 304. “For Jones,” as Richards attested in a recent article for the International Herald Tribune, “it meant the obliteration of a Test career.”

Until a couple of years back it would have been possible, just, to defend the ICC’s stance. But then came all that “Super Test” nonsense, the statistics from which are all now part of the protagonists’ official records. Come on, chaps: some consistency would be nice. Especially since it would also mean restoring Sobers’s 254 at the MCG two winters later, for the Rest of the World against Australia, described by Bradman himself as the greatest innings he’d ever witnessed.

Simon Jones has been facing up to the possibility of career obliteration for some time now, ever since the end of the 2005 Ashes rubber to which he contributed so much, only to miss the final jubilant chapter. Up to that point, wisely deployed in short, telling bursts by Michael Vaughan, his pacy reverse-swing had mesmerised the Australians. Halfway through the third Test at Old Trafford he’d dismissed six of their top seven at least once; his mid-innings charge in the tourists’ second dig should have been decisive; all told, his 18 wickets came at one every 34 balls. Then, after being handed the new ball for the start of Australia’s second innings at Trent Bridge, he broke down with an ankle injury.

Fame has served him well – those modelling assignments have been especially fruitful - but he has not featured on an international stage since. Maybe it was one of the Big Man’s less amusing family plots? After all, four decades earlier, Simon’s dad, Jeff, had seen his own Test career capsize early due to the unique strains and stresses of bowling fast for a living.

Three summers later, Simon, having plummeted out of love with Glamorgan, is finally fit again, and confounding the sceptics and premature obituarists. Now operating east of the Welsh border, at Worcestershire, the force is showing every sign of being with him once again. Against Hampshire in a recent Friends Provident 50-over match, he clocked 91mph, blasting batsmen away and reducing others merely to fearful scorelessness. In his first 68 overs in all formats this season – and yes, his new employers are being sensibly sparing in their demands – he has bagged 19 wickets.

There is a big picture and a small one. Jones needs four more Test caps to make a minor but proud piece of history – Robert Croft’s tally of 21 is the most by anyone who has played for Glamorgan, although Pat Pocock (25) is still the leader among those actually born in Wales. Next summer’s Ashes, though, ought to be hogging the priorities.

An opportunity was lost when Jones was not chosen for the upcoming one-dayers against New Zealand, but it’s hard to fault the selectors for their caution. As with Andrew Flintoff, patience must be seen as entirely virtuous. On the other hand, if, come July and August, the fire of Messrs Steyn, Ntini and Nel is to be returned with anything approaching interest, the temptation to draft both men back ahead of schedule may prove far too strong.

Who knows: keeping up with the Joneses may yet become a worthwhile ambition.

	Texas billionaire Allen Stanford is ready to bankroll an ECB Twenty20 tournament © Cricinfo Ltd

A Welshman is due to take over as president and a black South African as CEO. Meetings of the ICC Chief Executives' Committee and the ICC Board are scheduled to run until July 4. With proceedings about to begin, the gathering remains a man short. Butter-mountain-sized mounds of Kentish pasties, ostrich pies, wombat burgers, rhubarb-flavour rotis and cherry-topped chapatis are being consumed with much relish and chutney, and no patriotism or partiality whatsoever. But patience is wearing thinner than Harbhajan Singh’s list of alibis for what the more patriotic and/or diplomatic call “inappropriate behaviour”. Just inside the door, unnoticed by most and ignored by the rest, lurks a lone protestor in a cable-knit V-neck sweater, holding a placard that reads “ICC – Idiotic, Corrupt, Crap”.

Then, as watches are consulted, heads are shaken, tuts are exchanged and formal introductions are about to be made, the missing delegate is shepherded into the room under blanket and armed guard.

(For legal reasons, any vague, distant or mildly plausible relationship between persons alive, dead or in purgatory quoted in the following unedited transcript is strictly coincidental.)

England and Wales Delegate (sneering and swigging a magnum of Majestic Wine’s finest and cheapest Chilean): The Honourable Member for Zimbabwe, I presume. These Arabs will do anything to get a Twenty20 international staged here.

Australia Delegate (chucking a tin of XXXX at the England and Wales Delegate and hitting the coffee machine): Don’t be so sure, you posh public schoolie pie-chucking Pommy bustard. Could be the former CEO. Go Malcy baby! Teach those curry-eaters a thing or two about political principles.

India Delegate (throwing a paper planer with an extremely sharp nose towards his Australian counterpart, who fails to get out of the way in time): You mean, like being kind to your local aborigine? That Aussie sneak. Good bloody riddance. Typical old world. They ran the game - the game we invented please note - for 200-odd years but that wasn’t enough, was it? They still can’t accept it’s our turn to call the shots and make all the dosh.

The latecomer takes the seat allotted the purported Zimbabwe Delegate but refuses to remove the blanket.

Pakistan Delegate (wearing “I Love Sachin” t-shirt and crossing fingers behind his back): Hear bloody hear!

Sri Lanka Delegate (wearing “I Love Darrell” t-shirt): Ditto to the power of n. To infinity and beyond.

Bangladesh Delegate (wearing a “Greed Is Not Good” t-shirt): I strongly suspect, unless I’m very much mistaken, that I concur with the Honourable Members for India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Pakistan Delegate (whispering a shade too audibly to Sri Lanka Delegate): Shut up, you fool. You wanna make them think we’re all Buzz Lightyears and Woody the Cowboys? If you’re going to get all clever and Pixar, think Ratatouille and embrace rat-like cunning, for gawd’s sake. (Turning to the Bangladesh Delegate) As for you Bangas, keep it short, eh? Children should be seen and not heard.

South Africa Delegate (wearing “I Love Warney” t-shirt, overhearing): Come on, lads. Get it together. We ex-colonials really must stick together. England is the enemy, remember!

India Delegate (pulling on a late-arriving “I Love Symmo” t-shirt): No, leave them be. Who needs ’em?

Australia Delegate (pulling on late-arriving “I Love Harby” t-shirt and nursing pranged nose): You wait till I tell Kylie about this. I promise you, mate: she’ll never do that IPL cheerleading gig next year.

West Indies Delegate (wearing “Frere Jacques – Kiss Kallis” t-shirt): Gentlemen - and others. I think you’ll agree that the public appear to have lost some faith in our ability to govern. So, before we start on official business, on behalf of the esteemed Mr Allen Stanford - who, contrary to vicious rumour, is not paying for my five-star hotel, my Avis voucher and those promised [makes quotation sign with fingers] escorts - I would like to propose him as the head of a new, independent body overseeing world cricket, which I’m sure you’ll all agree can only be for the best.

Australia Delegate: Bollocks.

England and Wales Delegate: Believe it or not, and I think this may be a record, but I completely agree with you. We may have signed a deal with Stanford, but that was only a ruse to scupper the IPL and outflank the BCCI. We don’t actually want that squillionaire yokel having a say in the game’s development. He made his money in America, for Gubby’s sake.

India Delegate: And I agree wholeheartedly with my Australian (makes quotes sign) friend. The Caribbean’s a dead loss, anyway. All the dollars on earth aren’t going to stop cricket’s extinction there. That’ll repay them for Jamaica ’76.

New Zealand Delegate (wearing a “I Love Chappells” t-shirt and a “Stuff Peace – Worship Waughs” headband): Aren’t we straying from the point?

Sri Lanka Delegate: Quite. What are we going to do? Trust the same old recipe and the usual ingredients or go for a brand new dish with a revolutionary new sauce?

Pakistan Delegate (to Sri Lanka Delegate, scoffing): OK, OK. I know I said to think Ratatouille, but enough of the food metaphors already.

Bangladesh Delegate (barely audible, choosing words with the utmost deliberation): Please, gentlemen, and ladies, I implore you. Remember that united front.

Australia Delegate (lobbing a sopping ink pellet at the Pakistan Delegate but hitting the South Africa Delegate): I heard that. I always suspected you lot were in cahoots. No wonder Pakistan didn’t want us over in April. I’ve got a good mind to get my mate Darrell No-Hair in here to sort you out.

South Africa Delegate (to Australia Delegate): You platypus afterbirth! Wait til Nelson hears about this. You do know there’s an ANC plot to kidnap Warney and black, er, whitemail his mobile phone company.

Pakistan Delegate (poking his tongue at the Australia Delegate): You’d better watch it, mate. I’ll invoke the Spirit of Cricket if you say anything like that again. I may even report you to Lord’s for rumour-tampering.

India Delegate (to Pakistan Delegate, laughing): Hah! Shows you what that lot knows. Lord’s hasn’t been calling the shots for quite some time, me old china. In case you hadn’t noticed, we run the ship now. Or were you wasting too much time waiting for Shoaib Akhtar to grow up to notice?

England and Wales Delegate (whispering to Disguised Delegate): Sorry, can’t quite recall your name, old boy, but these colonials do have rather a habit of shooting themselves in the foot, don’t they? Mark my words: Lord’s will be in its rightful place, back at the top, within a decade. Watch how I keep my comments short and heroically sour. Divide and rule, divide and rule – it never fails. We’re still the only sane voice. We’re certainly the only place on the circuit where you can get a decent cup of tea – that must count for something.

Disguised Delegate nods but does not reply.

New Zealand Delegate (yelling to make himself heard above the din): Enough. Enough. It’s like a playground in here. I warn you. If you lot don’t stop I’ll do a haka and really give you something to complain about. We’ve got five days of this but the way we’re going we won’t get past lunch.

A “harrumph” begins to escape the Disguised Delegate’s lips but he just manages to stifle it before the “-mph”. What emerges sounds to the assembled throng like a curious variation on “hurrah”. Silence briefly descends.

ECB Delegate (whispering to the Disguised Delegate): Do shut up, old man, there’s a dear. Best keep a low profile. We can’t have politics mixing with sport, now can we?

The Disguised Delegate nods.

New Zealand Delegate: Look, everything we’ve heard this morning underlines what the press, the players and the public have been saying about us for the past few years, and never more so than right now, what with all the business about Zimbabwe’s accounts, the IPL and the ICL, Darrell Hair, that regrettable and possibly foolish nastiness over the CEO and, worst of all, Jacques Kallis’s missing personality. The way they see it, we’re driven by self-interest, national pride, racial paranoia and cliques. And that’s the ones who can see a point in our existence. How about we wrongfoot them all?

A brewing scrum featuring the India, South Africa and Australia delegates pauses. A bout of vigorous nodding breaks out around the table. The protestor downs his placard.

New Zealand Delegate: Well, seeing our final scheduled day is July 4, why don’t we get the Yanks involved? I hear Bud Selig, the baseball commissioner, may be looking for a new job after all those nasty revelations about human growth hormone consumption on his watch. The thing is, attendances and income have soared as never before under his watch too. We need his nous and his impartiality.

England and Wales Delegate: You know something – I don’t think you are horribly wrong. The less they know, the better for our chance of retaining control, as I’m confident my honourable friend from the Caribbean will agree. We need Mr Selig’s ignorance.

West Indies Delegate nods slowly, wearily.

India Delegate: Hear bloody hear! And that goes for all of us in the Asian bloc, right lads?

Sri Lanka and Bangladesh delegates nod firmly, as does their Pakistan counterpart, albeit while crossing all 10 fingers and toes and screwing up his nose.

Australia Delegate: I reckon you can count on the Antipodean vote too. Those peacenik Kiwis have finally got their beaks out of the sand.

South Africa Delegate: Same for us Africans, given that my supposed fellow African appears to have lost his voice.

Finally, the Disguised Delegate casts off his blanket and stands up. It is Robert Mugabe, resplendent in a Manchester United scarf and “I Love Maggie Thatcher” t-shirt. At this, the armed guard who brought him into the room cock their cut-price Kalashnikovs and gun down the rest of the delegates.

Mugabe: Nice work, lads. Who knew my masterplan would work so smoothly? When I said cricket civilises people all those years ago, I was hoping I could do something to wipe the smile off all those imperial faces running it. Who knew history would commemorate me as the man who cleaned the bloody game up? My work is finally done. Wonder if they’ve got any vacancies at the Home for Retired Megalomaniacs.

	Andrew Flintoff has recovered from his latest career-threatening ankle operation © Getty Images

(With thanks, and profuse apologies, to Rodgers and Hammerstein)

How do you solve a problem like Andrew Flintoff? How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? Such is the knotty problem that the new England selectorial team, under lone survivor Geoff Miller, will be attempting to unravel this summer. Good luck, lads.

The headline news is that The Artist Alternately And Affectionately Known As Freddie, The Fredster, Fab Freddie, Mr InFredible and sundry other nicknames has recovered from his latest career-threatening ankle operation. He is acquiring match fitness with Lancashire and says he is eager to return to the international fray. Over the coming days, as they sit down to select a squad for next week’s first Test against New Zealand, Miller and his compadres will decide whether he knows what’s best for him.

As a noted, successful and highly amusing after-dinner speaker, Miller has spent the past two decades regaling folk with his fact-meets-fictional stories of the icons he played alongside in the 1970s and 1980s – Ian Botham, Derek Randall, Mike Brearley and so on. More than most, he will recognise the need to give individuals their head.

But will Miller, Ashley Giles and James Whittaker, none of them lovers of orthodoxy, act on the proposal of Michael Vaughan, who believes Flintoff should return next Thursday, for his first Test since January 2007? Perhaps the question should be rephrased. Should they pick him?

Peter Moores, England’s flexible and sometimes lateral-thinking coach, recently described wicketkeepers as the drummer of the team. It made sense up to a point – the best, after all, are mostly Ringos and Charlies. They support the Johns and Pauls, the Micks and Keefs, maintaining the pulse, eschewing flash and excess, seldom if ever drawing attention to themselves.

On the other hand, some drummers, admittedly an extremely elite band, are as important as the guitarists and singers, responsible for mood as well as rhythm. Led Zeppelin’s John “Bonzo” Bonham and Billy Cobham of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, say, but none more so than the late Keith “The Loon” Moon, the force of nature who propelled The Who; the only lead drummer in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. He may not be quite as potty or unrestrained – for all their mutual fondness for alcohol and messing about with cars and other forms of transport - but Flintoff is England’s Moon. At his best, he dictates mood and rhythm, invigorates and revives. And, just as The Who were never the same after Moon began his riches-fuelled descent towards a horribly if inevitably early grave, so England have not been the same since Freddie the National Icon celebrated winning the Ashes with a major bender and re-emerged as Freddie the Flawed Hero. Or was that Botham Incarnate? Let’s just call him Post-Oval Freddie (POF).

Almost from the moment he made his maiden Test century at Christchurch in 2002, Flintoff, after an apprenticeship the likes of David Capel would have killed for, was cast as the New Botham. Or, more to the point, the first bonafide New Botham. Up to that point, he wasn’t even the New Geoff Miller. Not only had he mustered just 259 runs in 20 innings with a top score of 42 and five ducks; his 241.5 overs had only once yielded more than two wickets in an innings. But now he’d turned his first 50 into a century while helping Graham Thorpe set a new English sixth-wicket record. The door had been smashed down. And his hooks and drives, not his yorkers and bouncers, had done the smashing.

Nor did the bowling take off immediately, at least not in Tests. Not for another two years would he record his first five-for, and that was the first time he’d taken more than three in an innings since Christchurch, though the prolific form of Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard reduced the opportunities for eye-catching returns. From that name-making second innings at Lancaster Park until the end of the 2005 Ashes series, however, he racked up 2383 Test runs at 40.39, smacking all five of his hundreds to date.

	Flintoff roars in to bowl in Lanchashire's county opener against Sussex © Getty Images

While England were putting together their best run since Ray Illingworth’s 1968-71 combo – 20 wins, four defeats and six draws in the 30 Tests spanning Trent Bridge 2003 and The Oval 2005 – the original Freddie hoovered up 1905 runs at 45 and 109 wickets at 25. The game had no more magnetic all-round entertainer. As with Botham over the first five years of his Test career, the two parts of his game fed off each other in a virtuous circle: runs begat wickets, wickets begat runs.

Since then, packaging has surpassed content. In 16 five-dayers since that Ashes-resolving spell in Australia’s first innings at Kennington (excluding the ill-christened but personally rather super “Super Test” for the Rest of the World against the Aussies) POF has cobbled together 47 wickets at 33, hampered by that blasted ankle, yes, but also, perhaps, diminished by that increasingly porous and brittle bat.

In four subsequent series, only against India in early 2006, when he passed 42 in each of his five innings and averaged 52.80, has he hit his weight. His last eight Tests have brought 301 runs at 25, with two half-centuries, both, admittedly, against Australia. He says he still regards himself, as he always has, as a batting allrounder, but it’s hard to see why. In 12 of his innings during that run he failed to last 65 minutes and only once faced more than 70 balls. Determined and persistent he may be, but patience, the Test cricketer’s greatest asset, never has been an obvious virtue.

Yesterday’s play at Old Trafford was all too typical of POF. A hesitant prod to slip and a first-ball duck, inflicted by a journeyman, Mark Davies. It was his second blob of a summer that has so far seen six innings and a high of 27 not out. Then, though, came a flurry of bouncers, yorkers and swingers worth 4 for 14. No matter that three-quarters of the victims were tailenders. Lancashire, snuffed out for 143 before tea on day one against Durham, had gained an improbable first-innings lead of 29. That wand is still capable of a vigorous wave. Or is it?

You know where this is heading, don’t you? By the end of the Old Trafford Ashes Test of 1981, Botham had played 40 Tests, the fruits 1958 runs at 33 with eight hundreds; 192 wickets at a smidge under 21; the fastest “double” in Test annals and any number of miraculous catches. His remaining 62 Tests, ie. more than 60% of his five-day career, were a good deal less fruitful.

Granted, there were 191 wickets, but they cost nigh-on 36 apiece. And if there were hopes that the back problems that tempered his threat with the ball would be counter-balanced by a maturing bat, these were roundly and rapidly dashed. His last 38 Tests brought but a solitary three-figure score. By the end it was almost embarrassing, the most painfully prolonged of goodbyes. All-too frequently recalled by despairing selectors in the fanciful hope that a vestige of sorcery remained at those beefy fingertips, his last 23 outings, spanning more than six years, amounted to 791 runs at just under 24 and 40 wickets at almost 46.

Yet the parallel with Flintoff is not so much the career graph. Botham went off like a bullet, sustained a phenomenal double-barrelled assault for five years, then gradually fell away to the point where opponents, by and large, were only ever beaten by his past, by reputation. Flintoff began slowly, had a 30-Test spell comparable with his predecessor’s best, then slowed down again. Whether he can come again may well depend on whether he can be sterner with himself than Botham, not to mention a better listener, which is where the most telling parallel comes in.

Knowing his back was never going to allow him to bend it consistently after that fiery but sapping 1985 Ashes campaign, Botham had a choice: try and bluster through, still firing with both barrels, or focus on batting, build on an essentially orthodox technique and become a more consistent, if mellower, producer at No.5. Who were we kidding? That he took the first option, the easier option, was inevitable. It was a natural consequence of that competitive instinct, that thirst to be in the thick of it at all times and yes, that ego. Few dared to try and dissuade him.

POF has only a slightly different dilemma. His form this fresh season, unwise as it is to draw too many conclusions from county performances, suggests that the belly still has some fire to burn. He may yet have a future as a first-change seamer, deployed in short spells to rough up the opposition. It may even be that he will ultimately retire from Tests and devote himself to a less demanding diet. But one suspects he could also have a far longer future as a batting allrounder, as a Test No.5 or 6 – he only turned 30 in December - if he applied himself with the sort of commitment that saw him shed stones and bad habits to turn his career around in 2001-02.

Vaughan, not unreasonably, believes his chum should play next week as a fourth seamer and bat at No.7. This is not ludicrous by any means, even if it does presuppose that wicketkeeper Tim Ambrose, with three Tests behind him, is a Test No.6. Some cheap and restorative wickets against a suspect New Zealand top order could refuel the run tank. Others would urge caution. With Ryan Sidebottom and Stuart Broad at their beck and call, and probably a revitalised Hoggard, England don’t – or shouldn’t – have too much need of a fifth front-line bowler against the Kiwis, so why not give POF a target? Get your head down, score some big runs for Lancashire, then come back, both barrels blazing again, against South Africa.

To pick POF now would send out the wrong signal. It would say, in effect: don’t worry about the runs - we’d prefer to have you bowling at full-pelt in next year’s Ashes than help you consider a change of tack that could prolong your shelf-life. The interests of team and individual should be the same, but in this instance there is a danger that what’s good for England in the short term may not be good for POF over the long haul. Whether he sees it quite like that, of course, is another matter altogether.

The key question, then, is this: is he cut from the same cloth as Botham? Even Brian Close had trouble making His Beefiness listen. Flintoff is more humble, less prone to bullishness in china shops. He listened to his agent and manager when he was overweight and underachieving. It took sharp words and plenty of home truths, and it had the desired impact. But has anybody tried anything similar since? The evidence is not plentiful.

The final word belongs to another larger-than-life character whose name begins with an F and ends in a double f – Shakespeare’s Falstaff: “The better part of discretion is valour.” Flintoff is as brave as Falstaff was cowardly, so my money’s on POF becoming Fab Freddie again. Eventually.