LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

123 Chairman of England Selectors of Sheppard to keep the gentlemen of the press on their toes for what they saw as the biggest cricket story to come their way for years, ‘Man of God Leads England to Recover Holy Grail’, while keeping everyone guessing by bringing first Dexter, then Cowdrey, on to the stage as his leading man. After the interview was published, Robbie took immediate action and telephoned the Mayflower Centre, at Canning Town in East London, where Sheppard was based, to find out if he was serious about returning to first- class cricket. Unfortunately, Sheppard was not in his office at the time but Robbie left a message with his secretary. By an unfortunate coincidence, Sheppard had a parishioner also with the surname Robins who sometimes telephoned him and wanted to talk at length about something that had already taken up a great deal of the Reverend’s time, and not wishing to become involved again at the expense of other members of his parish, Sheppard asked his secretary to put the message to one side to be followed up at a more convenient time. A week later he remembered the message and when she said that she believed the caller had been Robbie, he telephoned him immediately and Robbie told him: ‘If it’s true that you are available for this tour, it’s the best news I’ve heard for English cricket for a long time.’ It was agreed that Sheppard should start playing as soon as possible so that he and the selectors could review his fitness and form. Sheppard said that ‘I would play two months cricket for Sussex and that I would be available for the tour of Australia in any capacity. The possibility of the captaincy had been mentioned to me, but I made no assumption in that direction.’ That didn’t stop the press from drawing their own conclusions about what they thought was now a three-way competition between Dexter, Cowdrey and Sheppard. Once the series began against Pakistan, Dexter continued as captain, but after two easy victories, Robbie and his committee decided to shake everyone up and promote Cowdrey above his rival for the Third Test at Leeds which was soon won by an innings. Cowdrey may well have held on to the captaincy for the last two Tests and then taken the side to Australia, but there was to be another twist to the story when illness prevented him from playing at Lord’s as captain of the Gentlemen against the Players and Dexter replaced him. Before then, Sheppard had begun his return in grand style with a century against Oxford University, but it was a different matter once he returned to the higher level of county cricket and he struggled. In the next 12 innings he scored 297 runs at an average of 27.00 with a highest score of 95 against Northamptonshire. Even so, the press entourage had followed him avidly, recording his every run. After his sixth game for Sussex, against Surrey at The Oval, Sheppard went over to Lord’s to meet Robbie and Gubby Allen and told them: ‘It was an intriguing idea but I haven’t done as well as I had hoped. It has not been easy coming back after so long a lay-off. My batting hasn’t been quite what I had expected and I found the fielding rather difficult. Perhaps we’d better forget the whole thing.’ Robbie persuaded him to persevere and that they should talk again after his next match, which would be the Gentlemen versus Players at Lord’s, during which the appointment of the captain for Australia would be confirmed.