Lives in Cricket No 10 - John Shepherd

Chapter Six The Consummate Professional In a season in which all-round team work counted for so much, it was still very justifiable to pick out one man who did so much – and that was the West Indian all-rounder Shepherd. He got useful runs at the right time – he virtually batted Middlesex on his own in the Gillette Cup, hitting a magnificent century – but his seam bowling will be remembered most in 1977. How he bowled – so well and for such long spells throughout the summer. In one match he sent down 77 overs and in eight other games he bowled more than 40 overs in a match. On six occasions he took five wickets in an innings and surely would have crowned such a fine season by taking 100 wickets had it not been for a dreadful rain-soaked spell in August. Dudley Moore, Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, 1978 At the end of the 1973 season keen cricketer, Kent fan and journalist Dennis Fowle edited and published a 68-page booklet entitled Kent: The Glory Years 109 which covered the county’s great run from 1967 to 1973 and celebrated the five trophies they had gathered along the way. As we have seen, other than in 1969, when he was on international duty, John Shepherd hardly missed a game over these seven seasons and by 1974 he was in many respects Kent’s most valuable player. In seven years of first-class cricket he had scored more than five thousand runs and taken five hundred wickets – not to mention 156 catches. On top of that he was well established as a key performer in the one-day game, nearly always bowling his full allocation of overs and with a handy knack for taking wickets at crucial times. His legendary reliability, both physical and mental, was a source of comfort to coaches and captains who could turn their attention to the flakier members of their squads! 1974 For the 1974 season Kent had every hope that the ‘glory’ would continue and clearly Shepherd would be a key element in the realising of this ambition. The county had players who had greater individual talent in one part of their game: these were Cowdrey, who was to top the batting averages; Denness and Underwood, who were ever-present in the England side that summer; Asif Iqbal, when available. Only the fast-improving Bob 84 109 Denis Fowle (ed), Kent: The Glory Years , Everest Books, 1974.