Jones, 59, passed away after suffering a cardiac arrest in his hotel in Mumbai where he was on his assignment with the broadcasting team of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Jones was in full jovial self on Thursday morning, but by the afternoon, he was passed away. Australian bowler who was also in the same hotel did everything to revive Jones, but he failed.
Legendary Indian World-Cup winning captain Kapil Dev also showed condolence to the Australian veteran batsman.
“Deano was quite a dear friend of mine and I was shocked to hear the news of his passing away. I feel quite sad and sorry for his family. You are going to miss him, but his family is going to suffer the most. I knew him for about 35 years,” Kapil, who first played against Jones during the 1985 World Championship of Cricket in Australia, told IANS.
“He was a great cricketer and one of the best athletes. He was a master at running between the wickets. He was also a great commentator and had a wonderful sense of humour,” said the 1983 World Cup-winning captain.
“No other foreign cricketer has perhaps traveled to India as many times as Deano. He would have visited India more than 100 times. But now he is gone; he was not even 60 years old. Even Malcolm Marshall passed away quite young [aged 41 years 200 days in November 1999],” he said.
Kapil faced Jones in 20 ODI innings and took his wicket four times – twice bowled and as many twice caught as well – and in 15 Test innings, the Kapil Dev got him out twice.
“A day that changed my life forever,” Jones tweeted on September 19, on the 34th anniversary of the tied Test. Another tweet read: “This Test was the renaissance for Australian cricket. It was our Mt Everest moment. Under AB [Allan Border] we started to believe that we can compete against the best. Great friendships started with the Indians. Our journey had just begun!”
Jones carved a career as a commentator and cricket analyst after his retirement from all forms of cricket in 1997. He was the part of Cricket Australia’s various operations. Somewhere along the line, he was nicknamed ‘Professor Deano’ and he named his Twitter to handle @ProfDeano.