Canterbury on 20 January 1997, in a match against Central Districts. He was relatively old when he made his first-class debut, at 21 years and 7 months old, and for the first few years of his career he played relatively little first-class cricket, playing only 12 matches for Canterbury in his first three seasons. His bowling figures in his first three seasons were solid but unspectacular. Bond stopped playing cricket professionally for one year after he joined the New Zealand Police in November 1999, which left him no time to pursue his cricket career. He returned to play several games for Canterbury in the 2000/01 season and had reasonable success despite his year off. He was handed his first international opportunity early in the 2001/02 season, and from then, due to injuries and international commitments he was mainly unavailable to play for Canterbury, and only appeared in eight State Championship and ten State Shield games in seven seasons. He made a brief appearance in English county cricket in the 2002 season, representing Warwickshire in three County Championship games, finding moderate success with the ball. He returned to England to play a few matches for Hampshire in the 2008 season. In his Indian Cricket League career, Bond appeared in seven Twenty20 games for the Delhi Giants during the March/April 2008 version of the league, but had little success, only taking two wickets at 86.50. Defection to ICL In January 2008, while recovering from an injury sustained on tour in South Africa, it was announced that Bond had signed to play for the unofficial Indian Cricket League. This jeopardised his international future, as just a few days earlier New Zealand Cricket had announced that selectors would be encouraged not to select players associated with the league. As a result, at the end of the month, it was announced that Bond's contract with New Zealand Cricket had been terminated, as the International Cricket Council (ICC) prohibited contracted players from taking part in the ICL. Bond wrote in his book that he had no regret in playing for the ICL and stated that initially New Zealand cricket assured him he would still be able to represent New Zealand. He stated that the reason he defected was the fact that while New Zealand were giving good money it would not be enough to guarantee the future of his family once his cricket career would be