Dean Jones' life ended with a heartbreaking regret: his fallout with fellow Australian cricket legend Merv Hughes, with whom he was once "closer than brothers".
The Victoria and Test teammates had barely spoken for 25 years. Hughes has been noticeably absent among the many tributes paid to Jones since his death from a heart attack at just 59; barring an ironic Twitter retweet in which a punter criticised his silence.
The Big Merv feud was the saddest chapter in a string of ruined relationships from Jones' life as a cricketing maverick.
The brilliant batsman, coach and commentator in January voided his life membership with Cricket Victoria, also demanding that his name be removed from the state's one-day player of the year medal. CV had kept Jones at arm's length; despite success as a coach overseas, he was snubbed for coaching jobs with the Melbourne Stars and Renegades BBL teams.
The rejection hurt - but it was not as painful as losing Hughes as a mate.
"It's the biggest regret of my life," Jones said in 2016 on Fox Sports' Cricket Legends. "We were closer than brothers."
The bust-up came down to a Victoria trial game in the mid-1990s, when Hughes was trying to play through injury late in his career. Jones was put in a position to back or sack the big paceman - and regrettably chose the latter, despite his friend insisting that he was OK.
There was already growing bitterness between the pair. Jones and Hughes reportedly sledged each other so viciously throughout the trial game that hardened fellow pros were left shocked by the personal animosity.
"It got to a stage where he was injured, the previous match he had a hammy or something, and I said, 'Mate, we've been told by selectors you have to do a trial match. Just bowl five overs in this trial match'," Jones said.
"He wouldn't bowl off the long run-up, he'd bowl off three steps.
"When I went upstairs at the end of the day's play of the second XI match, all the selectors said, 'No, he's done, we can't pick him'. And I looked at the chairman of selectors and I said, 'Right, haul him up.'
"So we called him up to the room. We sat down and I said, 'Merv, how do you feel?' And he said, 'I told you Deano, I was right. I'll be OK for Tasmania for next week'.
"And then the selectors looked at me and said, 'It's up to you Deano. You do whatever you think is right'. I looked at him and said, 'Sorry, you're not ready'."
It was taken by Hughes as a grave, irrevocable offence against their friendship. The fast-bowler's first-class career ended in the 1994-95 season, three years before Jones, who refused to pick his once-great mate.
Jones regretted the snub deeply, counting it as the one time that he should have put mateship above cricket.
"In hindsight, if I had the chance again, I'd play him. The friendship ... the game isn't just about winning all the time," Jones said on Cricket Legends.
"We went to war together. If he didn't hang around with me in Adelaide (a 1989 Test against West Indies in which Jones hit 216), I never would have got a 200. He got hit 45 times.
"When I was captain of Victoria, I always said to myself no matter what friendships, no matter what, I always prepare and look after the White V.
"It was a difficult time. We've addressed it but we're nowhere near as close as we used to be.
"He was also at the end of his career as well; he was fighting those demons and you're a different person when you're, 'What do I do next?' We didn't know what we were going to do next in life after that, so we didn't have much organised."
Jones was an adored figure among Australian cricket fans, a marvellous thinker within the game, yet also lived a complicated life.
His ex-lover, Kerri-Anne Hamilton, spoke out among tributes to Jones in order for his son Koby - born from their affair - to get due recognition after the cricket icon's death.
While playing, Jones was devastated when after making 39 on debut for Victoria, veteran Ray Bright stood up in the dressing room and branded him "the worst batsman I've ever seen play for Victoria". That was after he'd stared down iconic paceman Dennis Lillee at the WACA, aged just 20.
"Everyone laughed at me," Jones said on The Howie Games podcast in 2016. "That was my initiation into playing cricket for Victoria. And that's not right, that's shocking."
Yet in at least one instance, Jones carried on the culture of similarly cutting barbs.
Shane Warne revealed that upon taking his second Test wicket, after a torrid introduction to the Australian team against India then Sri Lanka, Jones fired a shot.
"He came in the huddle and said, 'Well done champ, you now average 435 runs per wicket, well done'. Thanks for that, Deano," Warne wrote in his Herald Sun column.
from WWOS https://wwos.nine.com.au/cricket/dean-jones-merv-hughes-fallout-broke-late-cricket-legends-heart/c40a0231-b148-4630-8db1-bb7796099a1b
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