Honest chat puts Jonassen on track for personal best

After being told "in no uncertain terms" to pull her head in, Brisbane Heat allrounder Jess Jonassen is on track for her best Rebel WBBL season ever with bat and ball.

The left-arm spinner is leading the league wickets tally with 17 at 14.11 after 11 matches – bowling with an economy rate of 5.85 to boot – already equaling her previous best haul from WBBL|02.

But it’s with the bat that Jonassen is making the greatest strides, thanks to an honest conversation with new Brisbane Heat coach Ashley Noffke.

From 11 innings, Jonassen has struck 268 runs at 38.28 – those runs coming at the handy strike rate of 127.61 – with knocks of 63no, 32no, 10, 37no and 33 from her last five innings.

Her most profitable season with the bat was in WBBL|01, when she hit 282 at 28.20 from 14 innings.

Coming in at either first or second drop, behind openers Beth Mooney – the league’s leading run scorer – and New Zealand import Maddy Green, Jonassen is proving the perfect foil for the platform that is, more often than not, being laid by Mooney.

Or in the case of Wednesday, when Mooney had a rare failure, the Queenslander is more than capable of stepping up in the void.

The Heat at one stage were faltering at 5-98 before Jonassen upped the ante against a strong Melbourne Renegades bowling attack, hammering 63 runs from 29 deliveries, including 37 from the final 12 balls she faced, taking them to 5-153.

"I’ve done a lot of work with Noffers (in the pre-season before we went away for the Ashes and again now I’m back in the Queensland and Heat set-up," Jonassen, a key member of the Australian set-up, told cricket.com.au.

"To be honest, I was probably trying to bat like other people.

"You see how the likes of Alyssa Healy has been hitting it and the areas she accesses, and even Mooney to some extent, you see these people who are scoring a lot of runs and very quickly you want to emulate that.

"It took Noffers to tell me, in no uncertain terms, to pull my head in and have a think about how Jess Jonassen plays.

"He’s helped me get some clarity around how I want to play and how I go about scoring runs and I think it’s just started to click in the last few innings."

With a T20 World Cup looming on Australian soil next February and March, Jonassen’s newfound confidence with the bat is an added boost to the depth of the No.1 ranked Australians, given she typically bats at No.7 or 8 at international level.

More immediately, it’s a positive sign for the ladder-leading Heat, who are eyeing back-to-back WBBL titles.

That Jonassen is dominating with the ball is not surprising – she is the world’s top-ranked ODI bowler and sits inside the top 10 of the ICC’s T20 charts.  

What is surprising, perhaps, is that her track record in the WBBL has not matches her exemplary record at international level.

When the Heat took out the title last summer, Jonassen captured 15 wickets at 27.26, and her WBBL|02 haul of 17 at 20.54 remains her best for a full season.

The 27-year-old captured eight wickets in two games last weekend to rocket to the top of the table, and Jonassen credits the work she’s been doing with another left-arm spinner, Australian legend and current national assistant coach Shelley Nitschke, for her composure in WBBL|05.

"I’m feeling pretty good with my game at the moment," Jonassen said.

"I’ve done a lot of work with Shell in the Aussie set up … and if things don’t quite feel right, I remember the sessions I’ve done with her to try and bring myself back.

"I’m making I’m still doing a few sessions every now and then to revisit the work I’ve been doing.

"It is pretty challenging when you’re on the road all the time, you’re in a play, day off, travel day routine so it’s about still trying to work out ways to keep in rhythm."

The Heat – who have been bouncing up and down the east coast of Australia since their last match at Allan Border Field on October 27 – flew to Hobart today ahead of their clash with the Hurricanes on Friday night.

A win will cement their place in the semi-finals, while also keeping them in the box seat to host the WBBL Finals Weekend from December 7-8.

"For us, it’s about making sure we finish the season well and we don’t get too far ahead of ourselves," Jonassen said.

"It’s a really right competition and if you don’t quite show up on the day, you won’t come out on top.

"It’s nice to be up the top at the moment and in a decent position and it’d be really nice to host the finals, but in saying that, it’s not something we’re thinking about as a group at this stage."