Lives in Cricket No 14 - Jack Bond

Shepherd and the young Bob Woolmer. The score rose steadily, and at 197 for six Kent were on course for a comfortable win. For Jack it was the last throw of the dice – he needed his best one-day bowler to stem the flow. ‘It got to the stage where it was going so well for Kent that if I waited another over to bring Jack Simmons on to put it in the block-hole, it would have probably been too late. So, in desperation really, I brought him on at the Pavilion end.’ The Pavilion end, accentuating turn into the batsman, is conventionally favoured by off-spinners at Lord’s, but Jack always saw it differently in limited overs games. ‘I can defend straight balls, and at Lord’s you always feel the boundaries are short and it runs away from you down the slope.’ Jack Simmons remembers the challenge of bowling to a batsman as quick on his feet as Asif, who could turn his block-hole balls into full tosses: ‘I thought I’ll try something else. I’ll try one on off stump, and because he was giving himself just that little bit of room he reached for it and wasn’t quite at the pitch of the ball. But I still thought, crikey, that’s another four through extra cover.’ Seeing the ball destined for the corner of the Warner Stand, Lancashire supporters’ hearts sank. But all was not lost. In the words of John Arlott, writing in the Guardian : ‘Bond, shedding half his thirty-nine years, leapt up wide to his right and took the catch one-handed at full stretch before falling, holding it exultantly high.’ Lancashire’s captain had taken a miracle catch that would be talked of for decades to come. For Arlott, ‘all that came after was anti-climax.’ To John Woodcock, too, it was the game’s last turning point. ‘He [Asif] had turned impending defeat into imminent victory when Bond had his moment of inspiration. It took a great catch to end a great innings, and by the way they mobbed their captain Lancashire showed their relief. A brilliant piece of fielding by Clive Lloyd, which ran out Julien, rounded off this happy day.’ Lancashire’s luck had held. Only one more encounter remained to round off another successful season. The following Sunday, 30,000 were again crammed into Old Trafford. They had come to salute their champions and witness the coup de grâce in the John Player League. At first the script was followed faithfully. Glamorgan batted and brilliant fielding took the eye as only Majid Khan and Tony Lewis threatened an innings of any substance. ‘We managed to restrict them to 143 and everybody thought it was won,’ Jack reflects sadly. From 43 for one the innings disintegrated. There was a brief flurry of hitting from Hughes, but 106 ‘A great catch to end a great innings’