Lives in Cricket No 10 - John Shepherd

even if the unknown reason why he was excluded from 1971 onwards had faded as an issue. In later years Garry Sobers said to John Shepherd that he, Shepherd, should have played far more matches for his country than he did. And Colin Cowdrey, who perhaps knew more about Shepherd’s cricketing talents from close at hand than anybody, wrote that he was ‘ … only sorry that he has not played more in Test cricket for he was clearly good enough to do so.’ 54 Why did Shepherd not have the opportunity to achieve more than his five Test caps? Nobody seems really to know. Tony Cozier 55 thinks that Shepherd could have improved his chances by committing himself more to Barbados, something that the shrewd observer Barry Richards also feels: ‘… one wonders if he’d had the inclination to go back to the West Indies to play Shell Shield seriously, he might have played in more Tests than the handful in which he appeared.’ 56 He was very unfortunate also with his timing. West Indies played their first limited-overs international in September 1973, shortly before Shepherd departed for the controversial D.H.Robins tour to South Africa. As Kent were to show over the years, to have an allrounder of Shepherd’s talent in a one-day side was a real asset. He could well have been a key member of the West Indies one-day side over the remainder of the 1970s had things worked out differently, but that too was not to be. 52 Testing Times In full flow. John Shepherd in characteristic style in 1969. 54 Colin Cowdrey, M.C.C: The Autobiography of a Cricketer , Hodder and Stoughton, 1976. 55 Interview with the author, September 2008. 56 Barry Richards in John Shepherd Benefit Souvenir , 1979.