Getting up to speed

Simon Jones trains with England last summer, part of his long battle back to fitness © Getty Images

Simon Jones reclines in a black leather armchair in the computer suite at the ECB Academy's plush new home in Loughborough. Everything is sleek and state-of-the-art, screaming "this is the future". And this is where Jones has been working to put the past behind him. Dressed in black and grey training gear, he looks every inch the thoroughbred athlete who answers to the nickname `Racehorse'. His bowling is almost up to full speed. He can joke about the injury now. "I've got my operation on DVD; it's not nice, pretty graphic," he says. Perhaps he could market it come the day he has taken 200 Test wickets. "Good thinkin' that," he chuckles.

Last year was no laughing matter for Jones, who was 25 on Christmas Day. To take 20 Test wickets, let alone 200, would be a major achievement after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee diving vainly to stop a boundary at the Gabba in Brisbane. That was November 7, 2002, the first day of the last Ashes series. This type of injury, more common in football than cricket, is not as career-threatening as it used to be. But bowling fast is an unnatural and precarious business at the best of times, without injuries that leave a man unable to walk for six weeks. If it had been his left knee - the one that bears the brunt when he bowls - it could have been a lot worse.

It is late November and Jones's rehabilitation is almost complete. Bowling at 90% capacity he is hitting the upper 80s mph. By the time he and the students at the Academy broke up for Christmas he was passing 90mph. "It's a hell of a long way to come back and a lot of people are surprised I have. Ten years ago my career might have been over," he says. "I told myself you only get one chance in life and you have to take it. I had a taste of Test cricket and I loved every minute of it. I want to get back playing at that level. I'm young and I just want to play. It's been over a year and it's gone very slowly. I don't want to miss any more."

Next stop on the comeback trail is India at the end of January with the Academy (aka England A) who are competing in the regional Duleep Trophy competition. That is the first time he may truly know what the future holds. Troy Cooley, the ECB fast bowling coach, has been working with Jones all winter and says confidently: "We're ready to let him loose."

Cooley, a personable Tasmanian, is regarded as an expert in biomechanics and has worked with Jones to refine a bowling action that was the subject of much discussion when he made his Test debut against India at Lord's in 2002. Back then he was running off only six yards. His power and pace were generated largely at the crease by his upper body strength over a rigidly braced left knee. This unusually short run-up was developed at the Academy in Adelaide over the preceding winter in conjunction with Cooley and Rod Marsh, the Academy director, in an effort to make Jones's action more controlled. He lengthened his run-up for his debut Test after consultation with Duncan Fletcher, the England coach who had previously coached Glamorgan. "Duncan felt that the six-yard run-up put too much stress on my body," says Jones. He bowled - and batted - impressively at Lord's. But he sustained a rib injury, which inflamed debate about the length of his new run-up. He now runs in off about 15 yards.

His darkest hour: Simon Jones is treated after injuring himself at The Gabba © Getty Images

"The old action had injury concerns and at the speed he was bowling at those were increased," says Cooley. "I first saw him in 2001 at the Academy and I liked what I saw. He had pace, he looked like an athlete, he had a good heart and he wanted to do well. He had a side injury then, so I did some remedial work with him. I then caught up with him in mid-season last year and we did five sessions during the summer. Although he wasn't able to bowl full pace he was starting to get things right. His tendency to fall away at delivery meant he slanted the ball back into the batsman and wasn't at his most efficient. "We've tried to get his weight moving forward through the crease a bit more. Over the last 10 weeks he has started to gain real consistency of line and length. He's been a champion. He's hitting 90mph plus and we're ready to let him loose."

Cooley compares Jones to the Australian Jason Gillespie as an example of an explosive bowler who has made the most efficient use of a relatively short run-up. The likes of Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar - both of whom Jones admires - prefer much longer approaches to the crease. Jones also works with Lynn Davies, the Welshman who won the long jump at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, on improving the rhythm of his run-up. At the Academy this winter Jones has been bowling three or four days a week, four overs at a time, probably no more than eight in a day. Once a week the students have an open net, where space allows a full run-up, close fielders and a wicketkeeper standing back. Jones offers a unique option to the England attack. While Steve Harmison relies on bounce to disturb batsmen, Jones is quick through the air, quicker than any other of the current crop.

Cricket is in Jones's blood. His father Jeff took 44 wickets in 15 Tests in the 1960s before his career was ended by an elbow injury. But Simon was more into football when he was growing up. As a 14-year-old centre-forward he had trials for Leeds United. It is hard to believe now but it was lack of height that led to him falling out of love with football. "I was only about 5ft 6in when I left school at 16," he says. "Then I just shot up." He is now 6ft 3in.

Football has become no more than a passing interest. He has eyes only for Test cricket and the chance to emulate his hero Allan Donald. "Oh, AD, yeah, I loved him when I was a kid - White Lightning, isn't he?" But until Jones joins battle again the image of his right knee buckling in Brisbane will define his career.

Jones is engagingly open about his injury, recalling every detail of the moment and the subsequent emotional rollercoaster of rehabilitation. He talks of it as an "eye-opener" that made him realise the fragility of a sportsman's career. "You live in this sort of dreamworld where you play cricket five days a week. But it can be taken away from you like that," he says. He compliments the Academy for taking a holistic approach to the players in their care. These young men do not learn only about cricket but about using computers, public speaking and job interviews.

He did a bit of public speaking just after his knee gave way in Brisbane, shouting at the crowd as he lay sprawled on the outfield. It was not from the pain, of which there was surprisingly little then, but from anger at a pig-headed spectator. "Some guy called me a weak Pommie bastard as I was lying on the floor. I don't think he realised how serious it was but there's a time and a place for that." Shock set in so quickly that Jones felt little pain. An Australian doctor was on the scene immediately and the nature of the injury was quickly clear.

A year on Jones is still analysing the actions that led to it. Chasing an on-drive from Ricky Ponting, Jones slid, he says, after debating in his own mind whether to do so. "That is one thing that sticks out - the fact that I thought about it as I was chasing the ball. The frustrating thing thinking about it now is that I'd have saved only one run anyway." The severity of the injury meant Jones could not fly home, so he went to Adelaide where the England Academy was based. "It wasn't nice. I just wanted to go home. But I knew one or two of the Academy boys, so they helped me through."

He went back to Llanelli where he was immobile for six weeks, unable even to bend his knee. He says he "half-watched" the Ashes Tests but could not sustain interest because "I just wanted to be out there". He lost two stone in weight through his inactivity. "It was very painful, unbelievable, the most pain I've ever been in," he remembers. "I couldn't even get on a bike because the knee was so stiff."

Surgery took place on December 5, a date as indelible as November 7, under the knife of Derek Bickerstaff, who has also operated on Michael Vaughan, Darren Gough and the footballer Craig Bellamy. The next step was to begin rehabilitation with Erjan Mustafa, the Glamorgan physiotherapist. Mustafa and Jones were close friends already and this professional liaison brought them closer. Jones trained and stayed in Cardiff during the week and returned to Llanelli at weekends, a decision that gave him structure and routine to a potentially soul-destroying few months.

When the 2003 season started Jones decided to remain a part of the Glamorgan dressing room scene. Many injured players, in football particularly, are actively discouraged from staying around their healthy, participating team-mates in case they should infect the unit with any self-doubt or negativity. For Jones, the "pride and passion" of the Glamorgan squad helped maintain his sanity. "It was much better to do that rather than sitting at home on my own. I enjoyed myself and it was great to be back in the team atmosphere." Five months into his rehab Jones bowled a ball for the first time. "It helped me get through the day," he says. "I was literally only turning my arm over but my body ached afterwards." The next step was bowling off some sort of run-up. "The first time I ran in off five or six yards I was very apprehensive." On August 6 he played for Glamorgan 2nds against Lancashire at Panteg. Although he did not take a wicket he breathed enough fire to force a batsman to retire hurt. He was trying so hard to bowl yorkers that he bowled two beamers and almost had to be taken out the attack. But the important thing was that he was back on a cricket field for the first time in nine months.

His next hurdle will come in India and then, all being well, in the Caribbean, the spiritual home of fast bowling. West Indian spectators are remorseless in their baiting of visiting pacemen but, if Jones succeeds, he will win ultimate respect and have enough action to fill a DVD with something other than gore and grimace.