Lives in Cricket No 14 - Jack Bond

were rolled sand and matting. It made them play – that’s why these lads were better movers, quicker movers than our lads because batting on the mat, it does make you think, like you had to on the uncovered wickets I was brought up on. They were less predictable and you had to learn to make adjustments. And that quickness of eye and feet is what’s missing today.’ Jack proved a popular coach and he was asked back for the following two winters, taking the family with him on both occasions. Jack and Florence now had two children – Stephanie, born in 1956, and Wesley, four years younger. While Wesley’s name reflects the family’s Methodist roots, Stephanie owes hers to Jack’s cricketing idol from his teenage days. In 1948 he had seen Lindsay Hassett play at Old Trafford, and the sight of another conspicuously small man had been an inspiration to him. Had their first child been a boy, he would have been christened Lindsay Stuart, but when a girl arrived a compromise was reached by retaining the chosen initials and naming her Lynn Stephanie. ‘We fancied Stephanie more than Lynn, so that’s what we called her right from the word go.’ 48 ‘A Methodist coaching the Catholics’ Brothers Macinerny (left) and McDonald greet Jack and Florence at Kimberley station in 1964, when Stephanie and Wesley accompanied them on their return to the Christian Brothers College.