reason he is back in line to captain the Somerset Cup Match team for the first time since 1989. Maybury, 33, virtually destroyed the ligaments in his right knee in a freak accident at work four years ago and the road back has not been easy. "I stepped in a hole and the leg hyperextended, causing all the ligaments to be snapped out,'' Maybury explains. "The major problem was that I damaged the nerve that gives you flexion in your foot.

"Up to today here in Bermuda, they (the doctors) can't tell me the nerve has fully regenerated itself. They don't know if the nerve has regenerated itself or if I've just re-educated other muscles and other nerves to help me operate this foot.'' The recuperation period was trying and Maybury needed all the support, and patience, he could get.

"It took 18 months with crutches and canes, and at some times I felt like being in a wheelchair,'' he says with a grimace. "I have a lot of things to be thankful for with being able to come back. My family, my mother have always been there.

"Sheena (his wife) is a great inspiration to me. She used to ride me hard.

She has been great about it. She actually put a gym in the house to help me regain fitness. A lot of times I didn't feel like doing it but she was there to say, `Let's go man. You want to let Doc to be captain for a long time? let's go'.'' Maybury's wife is the sister of Andre (Doc) Manders, who has captained the Cup Match team for the last three years in Maybury's absence.

While his family pushed him, the aid of physio Shirlene Dill was also a great bonus. "Sometimes I was a real bastard but Shirlene kept me going,'' says Maybury. "She almost brought me to tears, it hurt so much. She was great.

"My employers were also great, I suppose some of it had to do with the fact that I got hurt on the job. It's been trying at times but I have had some good people behind me, including Somerset Cricket Club and my team-mates who have always been there.'' Providing he maintains his fitness, Maybury will lead the west-enders out against Wendell Smith's champion St. George's team at Wellington Oval but he is constantly "knocking on wood'' for luck.

He gained enough humility from watching on the sidelines the past three years to accept that anything can happen in the lead-up to the classic and he must take one day and one match at a time.

"Watching was a learning experience. In the three years, if I missed three balls in Cup Match that was it. I've never been one to criticise other players.

"I think Andre's job was always going to be a difficult one, coming from a team like Western Stars to captain Somerset. I felt he was sort of entering the unknown to a certain degree and I felt he was getting better with it.

"With my past there is no guarantee I will make it to this Cup Match and I am confident he will be there if the club needs him.'' Maybury was perhaps destined to play Cup Match. His father was formner Somerset wicketkeeper Kenneth Maybury, who shared in a second-wicket partnership of 169 in 1950 with Timmy Edwards, which was broken last year by Wendell and Clay Smith who scored 220.

"There was always a cricket ball around the house,'' Maybury remembers.

"Everybody competed, everybody played cricket. My aspiration as a young guy coming up was to be a part of this classic. You went there and saw the best 22 players in the Island playing year in and year out.

"I remember vividly in the mid-Sixties, early Seventies, I can't remember the gentleman's name, he may have been a Raynor. He was sitting down the club side at Wellington Oval and when Lee Raynor used to run in to bowlhe was there shouting, `Come on, Lee' and I found that to be the most exciting thing in the world.'' Perry is one of four children to Kenneth and Ada. Maybury's father passed away when he was 18 and he proudly states that his mother has more than adequately assumed the role as the "backbone of the family.'' While most every sport was tackled, it was cricket that captured their hearts.

"It is second nature to everybody in my house. My mother even bowled off-breaks. You either learned it or it was no good.'' Maybury adds: "My mother is full of advice; never done anything to lead any of us wrong. I never had to ask my mother for advice. Where she saw the need for it, she gave it.'' Maybury was actually born in St. George's but he has always been reluctant to go into great detail on the lone flaw in his Somerset heritage.

He explains: "My parents were born in Somerset and the first two children were born in Somerset. My father was a prison officer working at Casemates but when he got transferred to Junior Training School, he moved the family to St.

George's to be closer to work. My brother, Greg, who is six years older than me, and myself were born in St. George's.'' Maybury spent four years in the East End, but states: "I have never been a St. George's fan. I have a lot of friends in St. George's, but those friends know that over those two days there is no friendship.'' Oddly enough, the rivalry with St. George's captain Wendell Smith started almost 30 years ago when Maybury used to ride in the back of Wendell's mother's station wagon.

"I went to Wendell Smith's mother's nursery school in St. David's and we knew her as Teacher Madge. We had a pick-up arrangement and I can remember Wendell trying the kick the kids out of the back of his mother's silver grey station wagon. Yeah, me and Wendell have been at it for a long time. "I went to East End Primary School when it used to be where the youth centre is. They used to have the first two years of primary school there and I was there for a couple of years. Up to now I have close friends in St. George's, like Bossy (St.

George's league player Lewis Foggo).'' Maybury, a cagey medium-pace bowler who can also handle a bat, broke into the classic at the age of 23 as John's Tucker's vice-captain. He played three times under Tucker and then took over the leadership for three years before the accident forced him to the sidelines.

But Maybury feels the experience he gained even prior to making Cup Match is sufficient to prepare him for an awaited return.

"I came up playing with a hard bunch of guys at Somerset. I started playing under Randy Horton, then Campbell Simons, Joe Bailey twice and John once.

These are all high-profile type of people, so once I took over the captaincy I had already realised what sort of profile it was going to give.

"I knew I had to be the leader on the field, so performance-wise I stepped it up a notch. We were at a stage at that particular time that the league team and the Cup Match team were going through transitional periods. I put extra into my game with the hope of getting extra out of my players.'' Maybury anticipates no acrimony upon his return, but support so that they can lift the cup from St. George's for the first time since 1982.

"With the experience and the years behind me I feel there is no real pressure as far as leadership is concerned. I don't feel I have to go out of my way to get these guys to follow me. They know what I am capable of and even during the three years I wasn't captain I've always been around.

"The challenge for us is motivation. Somehow we have to motivate the 11 players that are picked. They are going to be picked on performance level, so they will be good players. It's just a matter of raising the level on those two days.'' When Maybury was knocked out of the game, he was just cementing a place in the national team. A few months into his second season back and Maybury has already re-appeared for Bermuda. But he maintains his chief focus will be at Somerset.

"That Pakistan thing sort of knocked the sting right out of me,'' he jokes of the tour match on May 9 when the world one-day champions scored 374in 48 overs against Bermuda.

"I still have international aspirations but right now though, I think I want to concentrate on the Somerset situation. If I'm doing well with Somerset my chances of playing for the national team will be there. We've got a pretty nice programme going on up there and with the young guys at the age they are, I think they need me around. With my work commitments it is hard enough sometimes to train, so my main obligation has to be to them.'' Dexter Smith is Sports Editor of The Royal Gazette and a Co-Editor of the Bermuda Cricket Annual. These are his first pieces for RG Magazine. Cup Match will be played at Wellington Oval, St. George's, on July 29-30.

Maybury comes from a craketing family. Even his mother bowled off-breaks.

"It's been trying at times,'' says Maybury of his recovery,'' but I have had some good people behind me.'' RG MAGAZINE JULY 1993