Lives in Cricket No 10 - John Shepherd

of his comfort zone, although he was soon relishing the challenges both cricketing and personal. His first match in Kent colours in the 1965 season was for the Second Eleven against Somerset at the Bowaters Sports Ground in Sittingbourne. It was a two-day match and Shepherd, in his first innings on English soil, scored 56 and took three wickets, in Somerset’s first innings. The local press was enthusiastic about the debut: ‘Shepherd … created a very favourable impression whether batting, bowling or fielding, and his active approach to the game is a real object lesson.’ 40 A few days later he played for the Club and Ground side at Maidstone against the Kent Police and, before the weather closed in, he scored 57 not out. Before May was out, there was another not-out half-century for the Club and Ground against London University. It was a promising start but one which owed little or nothing to coaching. The nets at the county ground were primarily for the benefit of the first-team players and, pre-season, the remainder of the squad, like Shepherd, was largely seen as bowling fodder for Cowdrey and the rest of the First Eleven batsmen. Under the Ames/Cowdrey regime Kent had dispensed with the services of their coach, Claude Lewis (who became the team’s scorer) and, whilst the austere and authoritarian Second Eleven captain Colin Page also had a quasi-coaching role, there was no formal instruction at all. This meant that Shepherd really had to work out for himself how to cope with the strangeness of English conditions (the need to play forward on the softer greener wickets, in particular) and to demonstrate by his performances and his attitude that he should be in the team ahead of other candidates on the staff. Despite Kent having taken the initiative to bring Shepherd to England, his selection was by no means assured. After his initial half-centuries Shepherd, who had originally been seen by Kent as a batsman who could bowl, had a run of comparatively low scores as he tried to cope with the demands of English pitches in early summer. As the 1965 season progressed into July and August, Shepherd began to deliver some consistent and important performances for the seconds. There were fifties against Surrey and Worcestershire and a fine allround match against Middlesex at Ealing when he took six wickets in the opposition’s first innings and scored 51* in Kent’s second innings. He also took charge in a valiant run-chase against Essex at Orsett – with 211 the Kentish Apprentice 28 Young hopeful. John Shepherd in his first English season, 1965. 40 Report in Kent Messenger , 21 May 1965.