Lives in Cricket No 14 - Jack Bond

If salt needed to be rubbed into Lancashire’s wounds with their failure to bring Garry Sobers to Old Trafford, it was soon to be applied. The first match of the new season took Jack’s team to Trent Bridge in late April for the first round of the Gillette Cup. Lancashire batted first and Sobers gained an immediate lbw decision against Wood and, with Atkinson making a duck, Lancashire were 3 for two. Thanks to 61 from Sullivan, they reached 166 and, with three Notts men out for 51, it seemed that this modest total might be enough. But Sobers now took command with the bat, his undefeated 75 ensuring a comfortable four-wicket win. Jack remembers playing on in rain and appalling light. ‘I thought if we can’t get him out in the dark, what chance have we got in daylight?’ This early reverse set the pattern for the first few championship matches. Lancashire’s programme began at Canterbury where a low scoring game in which batting became gradually easier saw the home side victorious by six wickets. Then followed a string of rain-affected draws, after which Lancashire came within a whisker of victory at Lord’s as Brian Statham, with six for 48 in the second innings, strove vainly for the final Middlesex wicket. Jack looks back on the Middlesex match with wry humour. He had declared the Lancashire innings closed at lunchtime on the final day, setting Middlesex 267 to win. At least he thought he had declared! ‘At lunch Fred Titmus was sat next to me and I declared to him then. So we walked down through the Long Room at the bell and, lo and behold, coming through the other door was Middlesex as well. So there’s 22 of us in the Long Room. Fred said, “What’s going on?” I said, “I declared.” He said, “When did you declare?” I said, “I declared when we were having lunch.” He said, “Well it must have been my deaf ear!”’ By this time the umpires were standing in the middle awaiting the players, so Jack called them back and explained the situation. ‘They said, “Right, Fred, what roller do you want?” We were 20 minutes late starting after lunch. And, of course, we had declared hoping to get a result.’ Had Jack been sitting the other side of Titmus at lunch, there might have been an extra ten points for Lancashire. Earlier in the same match Geoff Pullar had revived memories of the glory years with what was to be his final century for Lancashire. Thereafter his form dipped, and by mid-season he was out of the 66 ‘You’ll have to have all your teeth out’