Lives in Cricket No 14 - Jack Bond

values, with no place for prima donnas, that was the essence of his success: ‘He used to say, “If there’s anybody thinks they’re a superstar in this side, we’ll see how good they are in the second eleven.”’ As time went on there were players eyeing places in the England side. Jack acknowledges the place for ambition in a sportsman’s career, but he was always wary of any obsession with life on the international scene that might be to the detriment of team spirit in the county dressing room. With his two overseas stars, Clive Lloyd and Farokh Engineer, he had no such concerns. Both were players who forgot any personal ambitions in pursuit of the team goal. Jack Simmons endorses this: ‘Two great players who played purely for the side. Over 15 years I reckon Clive would have scored another 20 hundreds if he had played for Clive Lloyd rather than for the team.’ Jack refused to have averages pinned up in the dressing room until the end of the season, and when one of his players used an early Sunday league match as batting practice while his team-mates sacrificed their wickets in a forlorn run chase, that player was omitted from the side. Jack himself had a high reputation as a supremely unselfish player, perhaps evidenced by the high proportion of times he was dismissed caught (67%) – forcing the pace – in first-class matches. He expected no less from those who played in his team. Universally respected at Old Trafford, the man himself is inseparable from his religious beliefs; but these take the form not of maintaining that he is in some way ‘better’ than his fellow men, nor that he has a faith that he must obsessively share with all but that he has a mission to help others. Asked to define his brand of Methodism, his response is: ‘Friendship and fellowship, community living, bonding together, helping people less fortunate than yourself.’ It is easy to see how such values translate into the cause of a team and leading that team. ‘Helping young cricketers and watching them progress, I take a delight in that. If I can help somebody or suggest something to them and it works out for them – that’s where I get my kicks from.’ ‘I’ve been in a position where I’ve been able to give people the chance to succeed or fail. I’ve been able to pick teams or bring people onto the staff, and it’s a privileged position to give people a chance with the bat or ball. If you stick someone way down the 112 ‘The finest captain I played under’