Simon Jones faces fitness race for T20 cricket campaign

Bowler Simon Jones faces a race against time to be fit to take part in any of Glamorgan’s T20 campaign after damaging his shoulder.

The former England quick missed last night’s four-wicket win over Warwickshire at the Swalec stadium, in which new overseas signing Nathan McCullum smashed 18 in five balls in the closing overs to see his side past Warwickshire’s first innings total of 118.

Jones and all-rounder Jim Allenby were absent from the side, having been expected to play, and coach Matthew Mott revealed that Jones faces several weeks on the sidelines.

“Simon’s a little bit more of a worry. His shoulder’s not great," he said.

“We’re looking at minimum four weeks so a lot of the T20 tournament he’s going to be ruled out of.

“Jim’s just got a stomach bug, he was keen to just try and push through [on Wednesday night] but we erred on the side of caution because he’s such a key player for us in all formats.”

McCullum’s late push saw him crack two sixes – the second of which won the game with five balls to spare.

But the Kiwi’s efforts belied a low-scoring game in which both sides struggled to come to terms with the lack of pace in the Cardiff pitch.

Mott, though, believes that is simply something Glamorgan fans will have to get used to this summer as he looks to adapt to the strengths of his spin-heavy one day squad and keep to the formula that has so far served them well.

“I don’t think it’s any real secret that pace off the ball is key in T20. I don’t think that’s a revelation for anyone at the moment," he said.

“If you’ve got world-class quicks then you go with that method, you try and spear in yorkers and your bouncers and that.

“But if you haven’t got those, and clearly when we signed Dirk Nannes we were looking to, when we looked at the square throughout the Champions Trophy and made an assessment we thought off-pace bowling could be effective here and so far that’s looked like that might be the case."