Cricket Witness No 5 - Whites on Green

97 The Prince of Port Eynon before a last hurrah on his old stamping ground by returning figures of 6/33 and 6/106 against Derbyshire in 1970. There are so many instances of Shep being the bane of visiting batsmen who were bamboozled by his subtle wiles on the dry, sandy surface at Swansea, with his finest hour with the ball at St. Helen’s coming against Yorkshire during June 1965, as Glamorgan recorded a 31-run victory inside two days. It was also a game which saw Shep and his spin partner Jim Pressdee, each taking nine wickets in an innings – the only time in a first-class match where a pair of bowlers have each achieved this feat. Their remarkable performance saw Pressdee claim nine wickets in the visitors first innings before Shep opened the bowling and took nine in their second innings in a game where the highest individual score was 46 made by Doug Padgett. Aware of the way that the St. Helen’s wicket would assist the spin bowlers, captain Ossie Wheatley opted to bat after winning the toss, but only Alan Rees and Euros Lewis looked comfortable against the spin of Brian Close and Ray Illingworth. It was a great credit to the two Welshmen that Glamorgan made 140, as the Yorkshire batsmen were soon in deep trouble against the left-arm spin of Pressdee, who had returned to the side after missing a couple of matches with a leg strain. Three batsmen got into the twenties, but nobody, not even the mighty Geoff Boycott, stayed for any lengthy period. The brilliant run out of Jack Hampshire by Peter Walker at short-leg halted the procession against Pressdee’s bowling, and stopped him from emulating Jack Mercer’s feat of taking ten wickets in an innings, achieved at Worcester in 1936. Even so, Pressdee quickly mopped up the tail, and ended with career-best figures of 9/43 as Glamorgan gained a valuable first innings lead of 44 runs. Although Shep had claimed no wickets, he had bowled quite brilliantly at the other end and as JBG Thomas wrote “Pressdee tried to make Shepherd lead the team up the pavilion steps. But Shepherd refused and pushed Pressdee ahead of him, through the clapping crowd which stood to thunder their applause for a memorable achievement.” 1 When Glamorgan batted for a second time, Yorkshire opened the attack with their spinners rather than calling upon the services of fiery pace bowler Fred Trueman. It proved to be a shrewd move as Ray Illingworth and Don Wilson made short work of the Welsh county’s second innings. For the second time in the game, Euros Lewis offered doughty resistance, but wickets tumbled at the other end, as Glamorgan slumped to 93-9.Some ‘old fashioned’ tail end hitting by Shep and Ossie Wheatley then tipped the balance back in Glamorgan’s favour, as the pair added 28 invaluable runs to set up an intriguing finale. Yorkshire needed 166 to win and they lost an early wicket as Don took the new ball and swiftly dismissed Ken Taylor. But Boycott and Padgett steadied the ship and shared a productive second wicket stand of 64 to regain the initiative for the Tykes, until Boycott was superbly caught