Lives in Cricket No 10 - John Shepherd

Introduction What do they know of cricket who only cricket know? C.L.R.James, Beyond a Boundary In his incomparable book on cricket, Beyond a Boundary , C.L.R.James poses a question that any writer or commentator on sport, indeed anyone who cares at all about matters sporting, should have at the front of their minds. Sport is not played in a parallel world apart from society but is an integral part of society – to look at sport without placing it in a wider social, political and economic context is to do an inadequate job. This applies especially to biography. Any ‘Life in Cricket’ is also a life in a societal context; and the sporting life often mirrors the world in which it is lived reflecting back in sharp relief its strengths and weaknesses, and absurdities and the injustices – as well as its joys and rewards. The decision of the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians to move from its statistics-based ‘Famous Cricketers’ books to its new biographical ‘Lives in Cricket’ series (of which this book is part) is a welcome one. The statistics of a first-class cricketer’s career are today easily retrievable online, especially at the incomparable CricketArchive website, but whilst there is a proliferation of books ‘by’ and about modern cricketing superstars (often absurdly premature ‘cash-ins’), many fine players of the past are unlikely ever to attract the interest of commercial biography publishers. One such is John Shepherd. What attracted me to John was partly my long association as a supporter and member of Kent County Cricket Club (for whom he played a pivotal role in their success of the 1970s), but also that there is a real story to tell. The statistics of Shepherd’s career are impressive and show how accurate, as well as prescient, The Cricket Society was in 1968 to give him their award as the leading allrounder in first-class cricket in England and also the aptness of Wisden’ s decision to choose him as one of their five ‘Cricketers of the Year’ in 1979. In the core twelve years of Shep’s Kent career, from 1967 to 1978, he helped the county to no fewer than eleven trophies – an astonishing record. Shepherd’s record is interesting enough as a spur to find out more about the man and his hinterland, but when you also consider his Barbadian roots and the fact that his sixteen years at Kent is the third-longest spell by an overseas Test player at an English county – beaten only by fellow Barbadians Gordon Greenidge’s nineteen years and Roy Marshall’s eighteen years at Hampshire – you see his unwavering loyalty. A ‘Loyal Cavalier’ indeed. Loyalty is almost a forgotten attribute when we look at overseas players in modern county cricket. With a few exceptions, overseas Test players and 5