Lives in Cricket No 14 - Jack Bond

Has Jack really retired from cricket? He loves to joke that he has been sacked twice by Lancashire, but it hasn’t stopped him risking his neck by returning to Old Trafford a third time. ‘He just loves the place,’ says Jack Simmons, Lancashire’s chairman for ten years, who has been able to see his former captain – and a man elected a vice-president of the club in 1996 – patiently preparing pitches for the nets on the last remaining grass of what was once a full practice ground. If the weather is right and there is a job to be done, Jack will be there two or three days a week, scarifying, mowing and rolling the surface on which the hopefuls of tomorrow can hone their skills. For a man from the era before mega-benefits who is always generous to a fault – ‘Jack would still be buying a round of drinks if it was his last fiver,’ says Jack Simmons – the work brings in useful pin money. But let Chief Executive, Jim Cumbes, the man who has it in his power to complete the hat trick of dismissals, have the final word: ‘He’s a lovely man, Jack. Still doing a useful job, but I think the ground staff are more interested in the fact that he’ll cook the bacon sandwiches in the morning.’ ‘He’ll cook the bacon sandwiches’ 135 Jack’s grandchildren Kate and Wesley.