Jess Jonassen

A left-arm orthodox bowling all-rounder, Jonassen plays for Australia women’s cricket team and for Brisbane Heat in the WBBL. 

Jonassen showed potential from a very young age, captaining the U-15 side to the national title in 2006. She made her Women’s National Cricket League debut playing for the Queensland Fire in the 2008/09 season. She impressed everyone in her debut season, picking up 12 wickets at an average of 19.83.

Two seasons later, she took her batting to the next level, amassing 228 runs at an average of 57 and in the process earned Queensland’s Player of the Year Award.

She signed for Brisbane Heat as one of their marquee signings. Jonassen took the fourth-most wickets in the tournament, having scalped 18 wickets. 

She had an outstanding WBBL 05 season, accumulating 419 runs and took 22 wickets to earn the Most Valuable Player Award of the season.

At the international level, Jonassen made her T20I debut in 2012 against New Zealand. She took 2 crucial wickets of Suzie Bates and Lisa Sthalekar to rattle the England middle order.

Jonassen had one of her best games in the Women’s T20I World Cup in 2012. In the final against England, she claimed 3 for 25 as Australia won the match by four runs. The all-rounder finished the tournament with 5 wickets.

The Queensland born was in the squad for the 2013 Women’s World Cup, however, after failing to recover from knee surgery, she was withdrawn from the tournament. 

Good performances in the shorter formats of the game led to her debut in the Test matches as well. Jonassen played her first Test in the 2015 Ashes series, and in the very first innings of her debut match, she was dismissed for 99, just one shy of what could have been her first Test ton. She recorded another half-century in the second innings to cap off a great debut Test for her.

She was mostly out of the side in 2018 due to a serious knee injury and made her return in the WT20I series against Pakistan. She was included in the Australian squad for the 2018 Women’s World T20, but she did not get a game as the Aussies went on to win the tournament.

In the year 2019, she bagged her 100th wicket in ODI’s and in the process became the second-fastest woman from any country to reach the milestone. She reached the landmark in 67 matches, just behind Cathryn Fitzpatrick’s record of 64 innings.

A legend of the game, Jonassen has been a stalwart for the Australian Women’s team. Her ability to pick up wickets at regular intervals and the knack of scoring runs at crucial junctures has garnered praise from the cricketing fraternities. 

(As of Mar 2021)