Lives in Cricket No 14 - Jack Bond

dubbed, had also made good progress in the Gillette Cup. There had been a 27-run win against Gloucestershire at the end of May, and in early July Hampshire were beaten by five wickets at Old Trafford. With a place booked in the semi-final, there was heady talk of achieving cricket’s new treble. Jack now took his side to Lord’s to complete a championship double against Middlesex, ten wickets for Lever and 99 by Wood leading the way to a ten-wicket win and another 17 points. With Surrey having no match, Sussex losing to Worcestershire and Glamorgan garnering only seven points from a drawn game with Essex, Lancashire were back on top of the table. The next match was at Derby, where the home side, sixteenth in the Championship in 1969, had been enjoying a summer of better fortune. Winning the toss, Lancashire were in trouble when Jack came in at 127 for five. Now batting lower down the order at number seven, he had seldom been required to play a long innings and had hit just two half-centuries all summer, but his back-to-the-wall determination brought an invaluable 89 that only ended when, with the score at 270, he was run out. Declining to have the last man come to the wicket, Jack then declared to allow his bowlers a burst at the Derbyshire openers. It was the last time Lancashire would hold the initiative, the home side batting on into the third morning to post 468 for five against an attack shorn of Shuttleworth. In Lancashire’s second knock, Jack was again top scorer with 58, but he was powerless to avoid the county sinking to a first championship defeat by ten wickets. With a single bonus point earned from this match, the championship challenge had stuttered, but there was little time to brood with a Gillette semi-final the next day at Taunton. Before a capacity crowd, Lancashire lost the toss and had to field. The return of Clive Lloyd and Shuttleworth helped keep the Somerset batsmen in check, a total of 207 always being within Lancashire’s compass in 60 overs. At 130 for five with Lloyd’s enterprising innings over and Hayes immediately dismissed for a duck, Somerset could scent the possibility of victory, but Jack, with an undefeated 35, added 74 with Sullivan to snuff out their hopes, the winning hit coming with more than three overs to spare. The treble was still in prospect, and a last-ball misfield in the other Gillette semi-final at The Oval meant that Sussex rather than Surrey would be contesting the final. Lancashire, the pedigree 86 ‘They stormed the gates to get in’