Lives in Cricket No 10 - John Shepherd

in 1977, was seen not to be quite ready at the age of 20.) How close John Shepherd came to being chosen, especially in the light of his fine year in 1977 and his experience, 126 we cannot know – although Derek Underwood’s view that ‘… at that time I don’t think that [Kent] would have wanted a West Indian captain’ 127 has the ring of truth about it. Alan Ealham had the good fortune in his first year as captain to be able to turn out a full side, week after week, untroubled by Test match demands. His first match as captain of Kent was a Benson and Hedges group match at Canterbury against Yorkshire on 22 April 1978 and, notwithstanding the intrigues of the winter, the dressing room had a familiar look to it. Asif, Woolmer and Underwood were back from Packer duties, John Shepherd was back from another successful sojourn with Footscray in Melbourne and the promising younger players Tavaré (23), Cowdrey (20), Hills (27), Downton (20) and Jarvis (24) completed the line-up along with vice-captain Graham Johnson. Would all the problems the county had faced over the winter disrupt the players? Would the accidental captain Alan Ealham be up to the job? Would the Packer ‘stars’, who would be available for the whole season for the first time for years, add to the county’s strength significantly? Would Knotty be missed? And wouldn’t Shep, now aged 34, at last begin to creak a bit at the joints? Well in fact John Shepherd did suffer from a nagging ankle/heel injury for some of the season but, as Wisden 1979 recorded, he was still to enjoy a fine season with bat and ball’ 128 in 1978 and, as we shall see, this was to be marked by the cricketers’ bible in a very special way at the beginning of Shep’s benefit year. The bare statistics of John Shepherd’s 1978 season suggest a slightly lessened workload with the ball (758 overs in all competitions and 78 wickets) and something of an annus mirabilis with the bat (1,155 runs and an average of 32 and two first-class centuries). But the figures hide the fact that, with Underwood available for every match, the workload on the other bowlers could be somewhat reduced – only somewhat in Shepherd’s case as he was still the workhorse of the side and second only to Underwood in the number of first-class overs bowled. Under Alan Ealham’s astute captaincy Shep was used cleverly in the one-day matches which led not only to his being the leading wicket-taker but to an astonishingly economical average of 13.91. Bowling highlights included a seven-wicket haul in May against Somerset in Taunton, including the great Viv Richards clean bowled first ball, and eight wickets against Middlesex in the space of two days in early June (four for 22 on the Saturday in the County Championship and four for 17 on the Sunday in that league). The value of Shepherd’s bowling in one-day competitions in 1978 was exemplified by successive matches in July; in the Gillette Cup on the 19th he took four for 38 against Northamptonshire and three days later on the 22nd he took four The Consummate Professional 96 126 The World of Cricket annual of 1978, edited by Trevor Bailey, said of Shepherd’s 1977 performances, ‘… the older he grows the more shrewd he becomes’. 127 Interview with the author, 24 September 2008. 128 Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack , 1979.