Lives in Cricket No 14 - Jack Bond

Jack had acknowledged his two years earlier. Could he once more crank up and revitalise a side in the doldrums? Jack brought some fresh ideas to Trent Bridge. He converted opening batsman Pasty Harris into a wicket-keeper, giving the side the balance that the recruitment of Engineer had done at Old Trafford, and he brought in Harry Latchman, another former Middlesex player, as a leg-spinner. But Jack contributed little with the bat and he found it an uphill task to motivate a more mature team. ‘I had gone from a county that was bubbling and bouncing to one where there was a lot of apathy, even in the crowd.’ Though Sobers was past his best, he and Harris made good runs, but there was a lack of penetration in the attack. Off-spinner Bob White, who topped the averages, looks back on a happy year with Jack in charge: ‘I enjoyed playing with him. I was very impressed with his tactical know-how. He had fantastic insight into the game. Man management was his forte, and he had a wonderful sense of humour.’ Jack’s humour was often needed that summer. Fifteenth place in the Championship, with just one victory against nine defeats, was a disappointment, and it was not a happier story in the John Player League, where Notts propped up the table. ‘It didn’t work out as I would have liked,’ he now reflects rather sadly. Before too long the county’s fortunes would be restored – Notts won the Championship in 1981 – and for this Jack may take some of the credit. It was on his recommendation that Notts signed the South African Clive Rice, soon to be one of the most successful all-rounders in the county game. The young Rice had played three matches for the second team at Lancashire and Jack saw him as the ideal replacement for Sobers. Jack remembers returning to Trent Bridge after the crucial meeting with Rice at Eastbourne to discover that the cash-strapped county wanted to reduce the playing staff to just 14 and bring in league players to fulfil second-team commitments. With so few full-time professionals, Jack felt he would have a staff too small for him to work with, so he enquired how many more players the county might be able to sign if he was released. He was told that his salary would cover two. ‘I said, “Sign two more players and I’ll go.” And that was the end of that.’ 116 ‘Nobody ever locked their doors’