Lives in Cricket No 10 - John Shepherd

tickets being sold at 50p. Norman Graham had set the standard in 1977 – his success being attributable both to his popularity and to the fact that his face was very familiar in pubs across the county. Big Norm’s benefit was officially around £58,000 but in reality probably a lot more. Shep was equally popular, although his lifestyle was rather less pub-focused so he had to work a bit harder to rival Graham’s rewards. And work hard he did, with personal appearances at all of his official events, such as golf days and cricket matches, as well as frequent trips to the pubs to advance the pontoon jar takings – on one day in the Deal and Dover area he and his local benefit organiser Fred Wilson visited no fewer than 21 pubs in the one evening alone! John Shepherd’s 52-page benefit brochure included tributes from a distinguished list of contributors, including Les Ames, Colin Cowdrey, Jim Swanton, John Arlott, Ian Botham, Ali Bacher, Barry Richards, Alan Ealham and Bob Woolmer. Even allowing for the laudatory nature of the genre, the pieces are genuinely warm and complimentary. Colin Page perhaps summed up the feelings of all when he wrote that he regarded John Shepherd as the ‘ … overseas cricketer [who] has contributed most to his adopted English county.’ 136 For his benefit match Shepherd chose a Sunday League game against Worcestershire at Canterbury in August and there was a crowd of 9,000 and the collection raised £1,074 – a county record. Beneficiaries customarily get a courtesy ‘one off the mark’ in their benefit matches but Shep was out for a duck, caught at the wicket off the bowling of his fellow Southern African pioneer Younis Ahmed – and Kent narrowly lost the match. After his sparkling year in 1978 when his allround performance for Kent fully justified Colin Page’s claim, John Shepherd’s cricketing year 1979 was something of a disappointment. His workload was slightly reduced; he played in 16 of Kent’s 24 first-class matches and also missed a few of the one-day games and his number of overs bowled in the Championship, 418.3, was the lowest of any of his full seasons in the game. The runs also dried up somewhat in the Championship – 370 at 19.47, although he finished second in the county’s one-day averages, scoring 395 runs at 28.21. It was common for players to struggle in their benefit years – something that was broadly accepted by the county management. John Shepherd’s normal commitment and loyalty was tested as there were benefit events to plan and to manage – this inevitably played on his mind even, unwittingly, on the field of play. In the Kent eleven Chris Tavaré and Graham Dilley were firmly establishing their places, and Bob Woolmer was the leading batsman and there was a good run in the Sunday League which, had the county beaten Middlesex in front of a full house at Canterbury on the final day, would have seen them take the trophy. It was not to be and Middlesex won comfortably to relegate Kent to runners-up. The 1980 Kent 100 Kent: The Final Years 136 Colin Page, in John Shepherd Benefit Souvenir , 1979. Dudley Moore in Wisden ’s ‘Cricketer of the Year’ tribute reported that Shep did not think of himself ‘as an overseas player, just a member of the Kent team.’