Lives in Cricket No 14 - Jack Bond

team. The following summer he was playing alongside Green for Gloucestershire. To Jack, Pullar will always remain an enigmatic cricketer. ‘We used to call him Noddy. He loved reading Westerns. He’d be reading before he went in to bat, and he’d sleep before he went in. He never watched the game. I remember him getting a hundred at Lord’s between lunch and tea. He had batted all morning for 29 then he let loose. A brilliant player, great to watch! Yet there was something about the game he didn’t like. I think it was particularly fielding. He’d had knee problems and his flat feet kept him out of National Service. Yet he could play for Lancashire – it seemed strange.’ ‘I remember he got a hundred against Worcestershire. I batted for a while, didn’t get very many then I got out. But Geoff wanted a runner, so there’s me still having my pads on. I didn’t even come up the steps and I ran for Geoff. He was probably 30-odd and everything was fine until he got to 99. And when he was 99 he hit it and he beat me to the other end. I’m not joking, I’m at square leg and I’m running, and I look up and he’s at the bowling end before me! And Don Kenyon is stood there with the ball over the bails. And he said, “What are you doing here?” Geoff said, “I’m sorry. I got very excited.” He said, “Well b ... off back to that other end.” But he let him get a hundred. A lot of people who knew Don Kenyon would think that a bit strange, because he wasn’t the sort of man to give an inch to anyone.’ Jack’s misfortune in sitting on the wrong side of Titmus at Lord’s having cost Lancashire dearly, there was another chance to break their championship duck at Old Trafford, but this time they were thwarted by Vanburn Holder in their efforts to score 199 in three hours to beat Worcestershire. This 48-run loss was followed by a heavy defeat at the hands of Yorkshire that consigned the team to the bottom of the Championship. ‘What can one say about Lancashire?’ wrote John Kay in the Manchester Evening News . ‘Nothing except to remark that they fielded superbly when the heat was on yesterday and bowled unsparingly. But until their brittle batsmen find form the side will struggle.’ There were draws against Derbyshire and Cambridge University. Then, in mid-June, came the season’s first victory, against Middlesex at Old Trafford. There was a bizarre twist to Middlesex’s first innings. Statham and Higgs had opened the bowling; then Jack brought on Shuttleworth as first change. ‘I must have thought I had him on at the wrong end, so I took Shuttleworth off and I ‘You’ll have to have all your teeth out’ 67