Lives in Cricket No 14 - Jack Bond

think, how people’s hopes are built up and the next minute they’re dashed.’ Jack had led the side half a dozen times during the previous summer. Of those who might at one time have been serious alternatives, David Green, hampered by a leg injury, had experienced another disappointing year and had been sacked, moving on to Gloucestershire, where he was to become one of Wisden’s five Cricketers of the Year after his first season. Geoff Pullar’s star remained in decline, while Duncan Worsley, captain of Oxford University in 1964, who had also led Lancashire’s second eleven, had played no part in the second half of the season, a shoulder injury hastening his retirement into the teaching profession. Jack brought to the task the experience of 13 years on the Lancashire staff, an acute and observant cricketing brain and universal popularity among the players. Whilst never keen to hog the limelight, he was not one to shy away from responsibility and he relished the challenge of leadership. Over the years he had seen so much go wrong: the aloof Cyril Washbrook letting situations drift; the enforced distancing of the young Bob Barber from the men he was supposed to lead; the hapless Joe Blackledge with the odds stacked against him; the disunity when Ken Grieves’ time in charge had ended with wholesale sackings; the iconic Brian Statham with no appetite for making tough decisions and an autopilot attitude to directing affairs on the field. But, from his second eleven days, Jack had also seen Geoff Edrich at close quarters, and he knew that here was his model for skippering Lancashire. Many years later Edrich would return to Old Trafford for a former players’ reunion. Walking with difficulty, he entered the room to all-round applause. This was the measure of a man who had been so widely admired in his playing days, not so much for his weight of runs or his leg trap catches as his indomitable spirit. ‘Everybody would do anything for Geoff,’ says Jack. ‘You’d sweat your guts out for Geoff,’ says Roy Tattersall, as he 62 ‘You’ll have to have all your teeth out’ Geoff Edrich: ‘a model skipper’.