Lives in Cricket No 10 - John Shepherd

– they ‘batted like heroes and fielded like demons’ and ‘played like men inspired’. 120 Of the five counties who finished on 40 points, all with ten wins, Kent finished top and won on more away wins and a better run-rate. The star of the show at Maidstone on that final day had been Asif Iqbal who scored an imperious 108 and John Shepherd got the crucial breakthrough again by breaking Gloucestershire’s opening partnership of 60 and then dismissing the dangerous Zaheer Abbas for two. Two trophies in 1976, and four others earlier under his captaincy, were not enough to save the Kent captaincy job for Mike Denness and it was announced in October that Asif Iqbal would succeed him as captain for the 1977 season. Denness moved on to Essex where he enjoyed four successful seasons before his retirement in 1980. On the last of John Shepherd’s Southern African tours, with the International Wanderers in March/April 1976, he had become very friendly with his fellow tourists, the Australian captain Ian Chappell and his compatriot Alan Hurst. A consequence of these friendships was that it was suggested that Shep, instead of returning to Rhodesia for the 1976/1977 season as he had planned to do, came and played top-class grade cricket in Australia. This turned into an offer from the Melbourne side Footscray. Shepherd, his wife Terry and their baby daughter Caroline travelled out to Australia for the first time at the end of the 1976 English season. It was to be the ideal winter employment. Footscray found the Shepherd family a flat in the Geelong Road and he was well paid as the club’s full-time professional and coach. Players at the club included Alan Hurst and Ray Bright, and Shepherd also coached the fifteen-year-old Dean Jones and the even younger Tony Dodemaide. The playing commitment was in two-day grade games at the weekend – it was intense cricket of a very high standard and the main nursery of Australian professional cricket. As the only professional, Shepherd believed that he had to be on top of his game in every match and his contribution was indeed exceptional. In one match against Melbourne he hit 156 in 162 balls, including 6 sixes and 11 fours, and across the season as a whole he scored 458 runs in 12 innings at 38.16 and took 32 wickets at 14.34 to help Footscray to the State finals. This led to him being given, by a record margin, the coveted Jack Ryder Medal, awarded to the Victorian cricketer of the season and voted for by the District umpires. He also won the Age/Puma and Sunday Press/CP Air cricket awards that season. The Shepherd family found their Aussie hosts most hospitable – including Ian Chappell with whom they spent Christmas in Adelaide. 1977 On his return to England after his successful winter in Australia John Shepherd was to find that there was uncertainty in the air when he 92 The Consummate Professional 120 Brian Chapman, The Guardian , 6 September 1976.