Lives in Cricket No 14 - Jack Bond

out and you’ve won the game.’ The Lancashire openers made a very slow start and the later batsmen did well to reach 173 for eight. When Yorkshire batted, the challenge posed by Hampshire was not as foreseen. ‘Our problem was getting him in!’ Jack chuckles. The score had reached 138 before the danger man came to the wicket, and by this time it was plain sailing for Yorkshire. Over the years the shorter timescales of the limited-overs game have rewarded sides, sometimes of limited class and experience, who have put a premium on disciplined bowling backed up by energy and enthusiasm in the field. So it was with Lancashire, where the young team were quick to embrace the John Player League. ‘A lot of the youngsters had been brought up on league cricket, one-day cricket. They seemed to adapt very quickly to it. And we had a lot of very positive cricketers in the side,’ Jack says. An important addition was 28-year-old Jack Simmons, an off-spinner with a famously flat trajectory, who came into the side as the replacement for Savage. Waiting until he had completed his training as a draughtsman before signing a contract with Lancashire, Simmons’ arrival was timely. He joined as the one-day game was putting a premium on the value of a reliable containing bowler. ‘I came on the scene at the right time,’ he acknowledges. ‘If I had gone five years earlier, unless I’d have changed my trajectory drastically to be someone like a John Savage, I’d probably have played in the second team and not been given another contract after two years.’ Simmons would extend his career until the age of 48 and later become chairman of the club. To his captain, Simmons always exemplified the values he sought in his players: ‘Whether he thought you were right or wrong, he would do what you asked him to. The only thing with Jack he was not such a good timekeeper. ‘And there was this new competition’ 73 Jack Simmons, at 28 ‘an important addition’.