Lives in Cricket No 10 - John Shepherd

starting with Shepherd’s maiden first-class century against Hampshire at Southampton. Coming to the wicket when Kent were in some trouble in their second innings, Shepherd scored 106* in two hours with 14 fours and 4 sixes to help see the county home for a draw. Reporting for The Times , the sharp-eyed John Woodcock spotted an on-field vignette which he related to his readers: ‘[The crowd] had the pleasure of watching some gay strokes by Shepherd, who made his maiden 100 after he had survived Kent’s crisis, and if they were observant, they saw, at the fall of a wicket, [Barry] Richards of South Africa shaking Shepherd of Barbados by the hand.’ 45 After taking five wickets for 22 in the next match against Cambridge University, Shepherd had another ‘fifer’ in the following match against Surrey at Blackheath and then four for 51 and five for 28 in the next two county matches. By the end of June Shepherd had already taken 42 first-class wickets and scored 422 first-class runs and commentators were beginning to talk about the possibility of a ‘double’ of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in the season. In mid-July Shepherd played against Yorkshire at Bradford, taking three for 31 in Yorkshire’s first innings but he then suffered a rare injury – a pulled muscle that was to keep him out of the Kent side for three matches. (This gave the young Bob Woolmer his chance, which he took well, scoring 50* in his first innings for the county.) Looking back at the end of the season it was missing these three matches which cost Shepherd his chance of the double. But once he was back in the side he took nine wickets in a match versus Somerset and eight wickets in the next with Warwickshire, helping Kent to successive wins. After the Somerset match in late July Shep was third in the first-class bowling averages behind Illingworth and Underwood. In August there was a match at Dover against Nottinghamshire when Shepherd was trapped lbw for 19 by the great Garfield Sobers in the first innings – a favour that Shepherd returned by having his countryman caught for 17 in the visitors’ first knock. In the Nottinghamshire second innings Sobers, angered by what he saw as negative batting by Kent, scored 105* in seventy-seven minutes, an innings which Shepherd now recalls as the most destructive he has ever seen. Nottinghamshire won the match comfortably with five overs to spare, thanks to Sobers’ innings of genius. In mid-August Kent played the touring Australians at Canterbury and, whilst the county side was comprehensively outplayed by a good allround Australian performance, Shepherd had a match to remember in more ways than one. He top-scored in Kent’s first innings with 84, a knock in which he rode his luck somewhat with as many runs coming from good edges as from the middle. He was also the leading wicket-taker in the Aussie first innings with four for 47. But it was what happened after he was out to an Ian Chappell slip catch in the first innings that has stuck in John 38 Kentish Apprentice 45 John Woodcock in The Times, 4 June 1968. The mutual respect between Shepherd and Richards, which began during this match, was to be seen at a time of stress when Richards stood four-square behind Shepherd during the Currie Cup selection incident in Rhodesia in 1975. (See Chapter Five.)