Last Tuesday evening, under the floodlights at the Rose Bowl in a relatively inconsequential one-day county match, a special thing happened to one of England’s Ashes heroes of 2005 for whom little has gone right these past three years. Time might reveal that it was a special thing, too, for English cricket.

What happened was that Simon Jones bowled perhaps as well as he has since a string of injuries drove him to the gates of a personal hell. Even those he used to number among former teammates and close friends had written him off and cut him adrift. The question he had got most used to answering was: “Haven’t you ever thought of giving it all up?” He hadn’t, and last Tuesday showed why. Jones bowled fast and well.

His first spell comprised six overs, cost 13 runs and brought two wickets. His speed peaked at an impressive 91.5mph but the speed-gun showed plenty of other deliveries nestling in the high eighties. Nor was this a flash in the pan. Jones, 29, has taken wickets in every game he has played for Worcestershire, his new county, this season, but this was the first time in a long time that he had played in a TV match and measured himself against the speed-gun. Bitter experience has taught him to be cautious, but he is excited.

“I felt I had been bowling quick but you don’t know until you see it [on the speed-gun],” he said. “Getting up to 91.5mph was nice but I didn’t often go below 85mph. It’s slightly down on my top speeds in the past but I felt there was more there. It was a strange feeling. I didn’t really need to push it that much. It felt easy. That’s a very good sign.

“The adrenalin was pumping because I’d not been on TV for a while. My first ball was 89mph. It was a yorker and it nearly knocked Michael Brown off his feet. We both smiled at each other. When I saw it [the speed] on the screen I was very happy. After that I thought I could push it a bit. Bowling and batting are the same: once you get off to a good start, you find a rhythm and keep going. It’s amazing what a few wickets can do for your mind.”

Jones is a changed man from the figure that shuffled through a final, miserable season with Glamorgan last year, struggling for wickets, good fortune and self-belief. He was then physically in reasonable shape but concedes he was underprepared for bowling after so much time out with stress-related injuries. He remembers playing in a televised match in 2007 that turned out very differently from Southampton 2008. The conditions were damp and he was tentative, worried he might damage his knees again. One commentator he declines to name took no time to write him off there and then, saying he would never get back to bowling at 90mph again. “I hope that guy was watching the other day,” he mutters. “It gets me going, that.”

Now, he is running in a lot harder and going through the crease with more momentum, a technical refinement that should, crucially, lessen the strain on his body at the point of delivery. He also believes it is this change that may see him bowl with more consistently high speed than of old. “I thought I could bowl as fast as I used to, but until the other day I didn’t know for sure,” he added.

He believes it is good that he is carrying a few more kilos, around 96 rather than the 88 he was at the end of the Ashes. He is feeling strong, though he expects to lose weight as the season goes on. Speed is not the be-all and end-all, but it is important for a fast bowler’s morale to discover he is capable of generating the sort of speeds he did in the past. Just as importantly, though, Jones is bowling well, shaping the ball into the right-handers, getting a little reverse-swing, and cleaning up tailend-ers with yorkers. In his two appearances before Southampton, he claimed back-to-back five-fors against Hampshire (in a one-dayer) and Gloucestershire (in the championship).

Jones’s life has undergone a remarkable transformation in the past nine months. At the end of last season, he became locked in painful negotiations with Glamorgan over the terms of a new contract, and he also knew his England contract was about to expire as well. He could see the severance with England coming, as he had not played a Test match in two years, but it still left him gutted. It hurt, too, that people were still talking about Flintoff, Hoggard and Harmison in relation to the England team but had given up on mentioning Jones. It was the Glamorgan situation that most rankled. The county were demanding a pay-as-you-play deal. Jones was unhappy at the lack of belief shown in him by a club he had been with for 12 years. “In the end, I felt, ‘Right, I’ve had enough of this, I’m off’. I have a young family and needed some stability. To offer me that type of contract, they were almost protecting themselves. That hurt.”

Other counties were interested but only Worcestershire, who were willing to give him a two-year contract, showed the commitment he craved. One team pulled out because they feared they might eventually lose his services to England.

Jones’s initial conversation with Steve Rhodes, the Worcestershire coach, was encouragingly simple. Rhodes recalled: “When I signed him I asked, ‘What is your ambition?’ He said, ‘To play for England’. I said, ‘Okay, fine’. That was enough for me.”

Rhodes insisted on Jones working to a properly managed programme supervised by himself and physiotherapist Ben Lan-gley, who has won over Jones with his unstinting commitment to getting the bowler back to where he wants to be. “Coming here has given me a new lease of life,” says Jones. “This is probably the best I’ve felt in any season I’ve played as regards enjoyment levels and feeling good in my body. This is what I needed to do. I need someone to believe in me. That’s what keeps you going. There’s nothing worse than thinking to yourself, ‘If they don’t believe in me, who does?’

“The lads here are a great bunch. I knew Gareth Batty from touring with England, Kabir Ali and Vikram Solanki, too. They all want to play for each other. There’s no selfishness.”

There is another reason why Jones is upbeat. His partner Justine recently gave birth to their second child, Charlie, a brother for 18-month-old Harvey. Fortunately, the timing was good, as Jones was not involved in a match at the time and, after a nighttime dash, was able to attend the birth. However, because of the precarious and itinerant nature of Jones’s cricketing career, Justine has stayed at home in Cardiff with the children while Jones has been lodging with Batty near Worcester and returning to Wales when time allows. If Jones’s comeback continues to go well, though, the couple plan to take a flat nearer to his new county. “Justine has been as good as gold,” he says. “She has been supportive and knows how important it is that I get my career back on track.”

Away from England, motiva-tion has sometimes been difficult for him in front of small crowds. “Sometimes you have to do it for yourself, remind yourself of your aims and get yourself pumped up, maybe even pick an argument with the batsman, just do something to get yourself going,” he says. “You just have to keep positive.”

Jones knows that after such a bright start to the season people are starting to talk about him once again in relation to England, even though he knows he is a long way from a recall. He believes that can only happen once he has come through this season untouched by injury and with plenty of wickets.

“What I’ve got to do is pretty simple,” he says. “I’ve got to stay on the park and bowl lots of overs. If I can show I’m fit and strong, they can’t really ignore me. Playing for England again is in the back of my mind, but I’ve got to concentrate on what I’m doing with Worcestershire. Some people in the past have lost sight of what they have got to do to play for England, which is take wickets. I haven’t a right to walk back into the side.”

His dream is to play in the first Test against Australia next year in his “home” town of Cardiff. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t do that, if I’m bowling well, but this season is going to play quite a big role in that,” he says. “If I can get through this summer, they can start looking at me again.”

Just as Jones has not given up on England, so England have not given up on Jones. Three weeks ago, the man who reverse-swung his team to Ashes glory met national selector Geoff Miller in Northampton and they spoke about precisely what Jones needs to do to get himself back into consideration.

“Simon’s got a lot to prove,” Miller said, “but of course we’re interested in his progress. He’s on our radar. He bowls 90mph and has something special.”