John David Bond, (6 May 1932 – 11 July 2019) was an English
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
er who played for
Lancashire and
Nottinghamshire.
Born in
Kearsley,
Lancashire, England, Bond began his cricket career playing for
Walkden, where he was raised, in the
Bolton Cricket League. He was a right-handed middle order batsman and joined Lancashire in 1955, being assured of a regular place in a strong batting line-up in only a few seasons, among them 1962, when he scored 2,125 runs at an average of more than 36. But by the mid-1960s, he was second eleven captain and an irregular
first-class cricketer.
Success with the second team, though, led to an unexpected call-up to be first team captain from 1968 and over the next five seasons, Bond led a previously under-achieving side to a run of success in
one-day cricket competitions that has not been equalled. Intensively competitive, Bond led by example in the field and often made useful runs, normally batting at No 6 or lower. A mostly young team included future
England cricketers such as
Barry Wood,
David Lloyd,
Frank Hayes,
Peter Lever and
Ken Shuttleworth, and Lancashire recruited proven matchwinners in
Clive Lloyd and
Farokh Engineer as the overseas stars.
Bond's great ability was to get match-winning performances out of average county players in one-day games, and he was also a pioneer in using spin bowlers as an integral part of a one-day attack. Under him, Lancashire won the
Sunday cricket league in its first two seasons, 1969 and 1970, and took the premier one-day trophy, then called the
Gillette Cup, for three seasons in a row from 1970 to 1972, a feat that has not been equalled. The county challenged for the
County Championship more strongly during Bond's captaincy than for many years, but he did not achieve the same success in the
first-class game.
Bond was named as a
Wisden Cricketer of the Year for his captaincy in 1971. He also took a catch to dismiss
Asif Iqbal, which turned the Gillette Cup Final that year. He retired from Lancashire after the 1972 season, then came back unsuccessfully to first-class cricket as player-manager of Nottinghamshire for a single season in 1974.
In the mid 1970s Bond moved to the
Isle of Man, becoming head coach and cricket professional at
King William's College. He also revealed himself as a fine
table tennis player, leading the KWC team to the top of the Manx leagues and winning the Island championships. He returned to
Old Trafford
Old Trafford () is a football stadium in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, and the home of Manchester United. With a capacity of 74,310 it is the largest club football stadium (and second-largest football stadium overall after Wemb ...
in the 1980s, as the manager of Lancashire.
Bond died on 11 July 2019.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bond, Jack
1932 births
2019 deaths
England cricket team selectors
English cricketers
Lancashire cricketers
Lancashire cricket captains
Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers
Nottinghamshire cricketers
Nottinghamshire cricket captains
People educated at Bolton School
People from Kearsley
Wisden Cricketers of the Year