Lives in Cricket No 14 - Jack Bond

had lived after their return from the Isle of Man. Someone from that address, they learned, had been involved in a fatal accident. Only then did they discover that Wesley had not returned home. Stephanie’s husband Lawrence went down to identify the body and confirmed their worst fears. Wesley was just 25 and had embarked on a career in banking before switching to the wine and spirits trade. A memorial stone stands at the Disley Club, ensuring that their two young members will not be forgotten. ‘They say time’s a healer, but it isn’t really,’ Jack says. ‘It is still with me all the time. Probably not as severe and as heart-rending, but it’s still there.’ His Christian faith was tested, but it helped to sustain him. ‘Without a faith, I doubt if we’d have got through that situation even though we didn’t think it should have happened. And we had a lot of help – that’s what Methodism is all about.’ A shadow was cast over what was to be Jack’s last season as manager. It had not begun propitiously with the committee’s choice of Clive Lloyd to resume the captaincy of the club. Jack’s own preference would have been to bring in an outsider, a move alien to his traditional instincts. He had suggested that approaches might be made to two former England players, Chris Tavaré, ousted from the captaincy at Kent, or Vic Marks, blocked by Peter Roebuck from taking over at Somerset. Jack retained the highest regard for Clive Lloyd as a player and a man, but he foresaw the absurdity of a captain sitting out most matches if the county wished to make use of the Caribbean pace of Patterson. However, Lloyd was the committee’s choice and he had to live with it, notwithstanding the chairman’s initial assertion that, as manager, he would ‘take absolute control’. An assurance had been given to the committee by Lloyd that he would be around the dressing room even if he was not playing in a match. Across the championship season the captain played in just six matches – he had made only four appearances the previous year, while the team was now led, at different times, by Simmons, the appointed vice-captain, although he was no longer a cast-iron choice for the three-day side, Abrahams and Fowler. A side already looking in three directions for a lead could now have four people whose views might count. It was the recipe for disaster that Jack had foreseen. 126 ‘I don’t mean me – I mean thee!’