Lives in Cricket No 14 - Jack Bond

1950s but, seeing little chance of breaking into the first team, he had moved to Leicestershire, where he had played for 14 seasons. The batting was also strengthened by the winter signing of 29-year-old Graham Atkinson. Offered no more than a one-year contract by Somerset, whose batting he had opened for the past decade, the Yorkshire-born Atkinson had opted to try his luck elsewhere. At a pre-season committee meeting Cedric Rhoades had favoured giving the second-eleven captaincy to Jack, had it not been that ‘Bond would automatically think he was being ruled out for First XI selection if he was offered the appointment.’ In fact, the arrival of Atkinson meant that there was no first team place for Jack in a side whose top six to start the season read: Atkinson, Green, Pilling, Worsley, Pullar, Sullivan. In ‘the wettest May since 1773’, these six saw the county through the first three championship games – two rain-spoilt draws and a heavy loss to Middlesex. Jack’s name was then included in the squad for the first of three successive matches at Old Trafford that were rained off without a ball bowled, with Wisden recording that, for the last two, the players did not even come to the ground. Only a switch to Southport, not permitted for championship matches, saved the fixture with the Indian tourists. With Atkinson and Green missing from the side for Lancashire’s next match at Trent Bridge, Pullar and Wood opened the batting, and Jack regained his place at number five. An undefeated 36 to secure a draw kept him in the team for the next match, against Derbyshire at Old Trafford. With Pullar and Statham absent as well as Green, Jack led the side for the first time. Another draw was described by Wisden as ‘a slow-motion match in which the tactics of the rival captains, Bond and Morgan, caused much discussion and criticism. The players lacked a sense of aggression on a pitch and outfield still drying out from weeks of heavy rain.’ Jack understands the criticism, but this was a match in which he felt a new scoring system awarded too many points for a first-innings lead rather than providing incentive to push for outright victory. Despite having a strong pace attack – Harold Rhodes and Brian Jackson were two of the country’s leading bowlers that summer – Derbyshire quickly went on the defensive, captain Derek Morgan’s field placings bent only on saving runs. ‘It was sheer bloody-mindedness,’ Jack still feels. But late in the final 56 ‘ We need someone to read nine verses’