Lives in Cricket No 14 - Jack Bond

no appeal to Statham and no other player was keen to volunteer. ‘So it was suggested that I went as twelfth man – to read these nine verses,’ Jack now recalls. ‘I wouldn’t have gone as twelfth man without reading the nine verses – somebody else would have gone and played if anyone had been injured.’ Though his Methodist upbringing will have prepared Jack for his time at the lectern, the prospect of reading in the college chapel still caused him some anxiety: ‘John Savage and myself were sat up in bed till four o’clock in the morning while I’m rehearsing the nine verses. I’ll never forget it. We’d been up with Geoff Edrich, who was coach and groundsman at Cheltenham. Geoff had taken us to The Highwayman and was telling us all these stories.’ Meanwhile the Gloucestershire match proved a game of tilting fortunes that ended with Lancashire, twice rescued with the bat by Shuttleworth, striving in the extra half-hour for the last Gloucestershire wicket. But for Jack, with the bible reading ordeal behind him, there is one dominating memory: the time he had to spend on the field. Pullar had made 64 in Lancashire’s total of 284, but when his turn came to field the former Test batsman had been less enthusiastic. ‘I’m on and off that field all day,’ Jack recalls, ‘and by the time we got into the dressing room, he’s out through the gate on his way to Worcester. And when we got to Worcester the same thing happened again. I’m up and down them steps all the time when we’re fielding and Geoff is coming on and off. And when we were getting ready to go down to Chelmsford, there’s Geoff Pullar packing his bags in his little MG and Brian Statham said, “Where do you think you’re going?” He said, “I’m going to Chelmsford. I’ve got someone to see down there. I’ve arranged to go to dinner. So I’m off now.” Brian said, “No, you’re not – you can get in your car and go back home!” So he sent Geoff back home.’ Pullar had top-scored with 44 in Lancashire’s first innings, but his inability or unwillingness to do his stint in the field had tested his captain’s patience beyond what even the mild-mannered, unconfrontational Statham could take. It was one of the boldest moves of his captaincy. ‘So they had to pick me,’ says Jack. ‘There wasn’t time to get anybody else down. So that’s howmy luck ran.’ At Chelmsford there was ‘a brisk display’ bringing Jack 64 useful runs as Lancashire built on the platform of a Graham Atkinson century. His top-scoring 37 then saved the second innings from disintegration to set up a 24-run victory achieved with seven 58 ‘ We need someone to read nine verses’