Lives in Cricket No 10 - John Shepherd

be almost an ever-present for Kent in all these various forms of the game for the next ten years. 1972 The 1972 season saw some important changes in Kent personnel with the retirement of Stuart Leary and the decision not to re-engage the pace bowlers John Dye and Alan Brown. With a full-time staff of 16, and with Test calls taking players away at key times, the burden on Shepherd and the rest of the county’s professionals was considerable. In the event, letting ‘Doc’ Dye go was a big mistake 66 as the bowling lacked a cutting edge despite the heroics of Shepherd and the county’s other main bowlers. There was also a permanent new captain as Mike Denness formally took up the reins after his half season in charge in 1971. Whilst Kent’s bowling at times lacked penetration in the County Championship, the presence of Shepherd and the other fast-medium allrounders Woolmer and Julien proved to be ideal for the 40-over Sunday League. Shepherd’s bowling workload was down a bit from the heroic 940 overs he had bowled in all matches in 1971: he still bowled almost 800 overs and took 87 wickets in 1972. Once again it was in the one-day competitions that he particularly flourished, conceding only 3.41 runs per over and taking 37 wickets in the shorter forms of the game. Kent’s immense batting strength (Luckhurst, Knott, Asif, Cowdrey and Denness scored 5,000 runs between them at the top of the order and Ealham, Woolmer, Johnson and Nicholls a further 2,700 as middle-order batsmen) meant that in 1972 Shepherd was rarely called upon to make a significant contribution with the bat – he dropped down the order to No.8 in first-class matches. In the County Championship a low-scoring game in June at Tunbridge Wells saw Shepherd take seven for 38 in Gloucestershire’s first innings with a fine spell of swing bowling. In August he helped Kent to a narrow win at Worcester with three for 85 in the home side’s first innings and remarkable figures of 24.5-15-24-5 in their second. In the one-day game the most extraordinary match was at Leyton in the Gillette Cup in early August. Kent had been dismissed for a paltry 137 and looked out of the match – especially when Essex reached 55 without loss in their innings. Then Shepherd came on to bowl – the fifth bowler that Mike Denness had turned to. Shepherd proceeded to take four wickets for no runs with ‘beautifully controlled out-swingers’ – and Essex eventually lost the match by ten runs. It was clearly a match-winning performance by Shep – but not to the adjudicator, Alan Ross, who inexplicably gave the award to Asif Iqbal who had top-scored with 52 and fielded well! Kent went on to reach the semi-finals of the Gillette Cup where they went down to Lancashire by seven runs and so just missed out on another Lord’s final. The new Benson We are the Champions 60 66 John Dye moved to Northamptonshire where he took 75 wickets in the Championship at 18.13 – his best season ever. He was not to be the last professional to be surplus to Kent’s requirements who went on to profit elsewhere, as we shall see!