Dickie Bird

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Dickie Bird

Batsman, Umpire
Domestic team information
YearsTeam
1956–1959Yorkshire
1960–1964Leicestershire
Scotland
Last FC12 August 1964 Leicestershire v Essex
LA debut1 May 1963 Leicestershire v Lancashire
Last LA27 May 1964 Leicestershire v Northamptonshire
Umpiring information
Tests umpired66 (1973–1996)
ODIs umpired69 (1973–1995)
Career statistics
Competition First-class List A
Matches 93 2
Runs scored 3,314 9
Batting average 20.71 4.50
100s/50s 2/14 0/0
Top score 181* 7
Balls bowled 48
Wickets 0
Bowling average
5 wickets in innings
10 wickets in match
Best bowling
Catches/stumpings 28/– 0/–
Source: CricketArchive, 19 August 2007

Harold Dennis "Dickie" Bird,

OBE (born 19 April 1933),[1] is an English former cricketer and retired international cricket umpire
. During his long umpiring career, he became a much-loved figure among players and viewing public, due to his excellence as an umpire, but also his many eccentricities.

Bird played first-class cricket for Yorkshire and Leicestershire as a right-handed batsman, but only scored two centuries in 93 appearances. His career was blighted by a knee injury, which eventually forced him to retire aged 31. He umpired in 66 Test matches (at the time a world record) and 69 One Day Internationals, including 3 World Cup Finals.

In February 2014, Yorkshire announced that Bird was to be voted in as the club's president at their Annual General Meeting on 29 March.[2]

Bird's autobiography, published in 1997, has sold more than a million copies.

Early life

Harold Dennis Bird was born at Church Lane,

Secondary Modern School
, leaving at the age of 15. For a while, he worked at a coal mine, but gave it up, deciding it was not for him. Instead, he set out for a career in sport.

Playing career

When a knee injury put paid to playing

batsman for Yorkshire[1]
and Leicestershire in 93 matches, mostly in the County Championship.

After his county career ended Bird was a cricket professional for Paignton between 1965 and 1969, scoring over 10,000 runs. He coached cricket at Plymouth College between 1966 and 1968, and coached in Johannesburg in 1968 and 1969. [6]

Umpiring career

He stood in his first county game in 1970. Three years later, he officiated at his first

LBW
– he gave LBWs so seldom that if he did give it, there was absolutely no doubt the batsman was out. Bird was also very strict on the definitions of "intimidatory bowling", both from short-pitched deliveries and high full tosses, and made it abundantly clear he would tolerate none of it.

Bird was an umpire in the final of the

conductor
was wearing a white hat very similar to the one he favoured, and asked the conductor where he obtained it from.

"Man, haven't you heard of Mr Dickie Bird," he replied. "This is one of his hats. I took it off his head at the World Cup final... we all ran onto the field and I won the race."[8][9]

Bird's attention to detail was placed under scrutiny at the

Long Room after their fifth pitch inspection. The two captains, Ian Botham and Greg Chappell, had to intervene to protect Constant. Bird, however, was still on the pitch at the time according to his own recounting of the event in his book. When play finally started at 3:45 pm, police had to escort the umpires through the Long Room and on to the field.[10]
This was not the only occasion where Bird had to stop play, despite current sunny conditions, because of previous bad weather: in the 1988 Test at Headingley against the West Indies, an overnight rainstorm caused a blocked drain to overflow with a delayed action: the pitch was fine but the bowler's run-up was slowly flooding from underneath, the water level was oozing up over Curtly Ambrose's bootlaces, and Bird's as well when he went over to investigate, and the umpires had to take the players off while the outfield was cleared of water.

One of Bird's strengths was his ability to manage and earn the respect of some of the more volatile players in the game, sometimes by using his infectious humour. He was also known as being eccentric, famously arriving at a ground five hours early as the

Queen
was to visit that day.

At the beginning of his final Test in 1996, the two teams –

Mike Atherton
out LBW in the first over. Two years later, in 1998, he stood in his last county match.

Bird umpired in 66 Test matches (at the time a world record) and 69 One Day Internationals including 3 World Cup Finals.

He came out of retirement in January 2007 to umpire in the

XXXX Gold Beach Cricket Tri-Nations series involving cricketing legends from England, the West Indies and Australia, which partly took place at Scarborough Beach in Perth
, Western Australia.

Post retirement

Bird went on to write his autobiography simply titled My Autobiography (with a foreword by Michael Parkinson), which sold more than a million copies.[11] A sequel titled White Cap and Bails – Adventures of a Much Travelled Umpire was published in 1999 by Hodder and Stoughton.[12] Bird set up the Dickie Bird Foundation to help disadvantaged under-18s achieve their potential in sport.

He was the subject of

Yorkshire Television.[citation needed
]

Bird appeared in one episode of Trigger Happy TV. He also appeared in an episode of Top Gear in 2010.[13] That year he also took part in BBC's The Young Ones, in which six celebrities in their seventies and eighties, attempted to overcome some of the problems of ageing, by harking back to the 1970s.[14] He also made a guest appearance in Series 16 Ep 7 of Heartbeat umpiring a cricket match.

Statue of Bird as an umpire

Bird was appointed

Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to cricket and charity.[15][16] Bird has also received honorary doctorates from Huddersfield,[17] Leeds and Sheffield Hallam Universities. Bird was awarded the Freedom of Barnsley in 2000. He was awarded Honorary Life Membership of the Marylebone Cricket Club in 1996.[18]

A six-foot statue of Bird erected in his honour near the place of his birth in Barnsley was unveiled on 30 June 2009.[19] It has subsequently been raised by putting it on a five-foot-high plinth in order to discourage late night revellers hanging inappropriate items on the famous finger.[20]

On his pending appointment as President of Yorkshire CCC in 2014, Bird stated "Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would become the president of the greatest cricket club in the world".[2]

In August 2014, Bird was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue.[21]

In March 2021, Bird spoke to the BBC about his loneliness while shielding during the COVID-19 lockdown. He said that exercise was the key to him keeping his spirits up.[22]

Umpiring records

Dickie Bird umpiring the Fourth Test between England and New Zealand in 1983 at Trent Bridge, standing between Ian Botham and Richard Hadlee
  • As of June 2021, Bird has officiated the most test matches in a single nation – 54 in England[23][24] and has officiated in more test matches at Lord's (15) than any other umpire.[25]

References

  1. ^ .
  2. ^ a b "Yorkshire: Former umpire Dickie Bird to become club president". BBC Sport. BBC. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
  3. ^ That's out - Page 4
  4. .
  5. ^ Test Match Special 28 December 2010
  6. ^ "Dickie Bird". Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Retrieved 7 May 2022.
  7. ^ a b Firsts, Lasts & Onlys: Cricket – Paul Donnelley (London: Hamlyn, 2010)
  8. ^
    Cricinfo
    . p. 2007. Retrieved 15 February 2010.
  9. ^ "Thats owt that lad (Dickie Bird: My Autobiography – Dickie Bird)". www.dooyoo.co.uk. Archived from the original on 20 April 2013. Retrieved 15 February 2010.
  10. ^ "Wisden – ENGLAND v AUSTRALIA 1980". Content-uk.cricinfo.com. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  11. ^ Nick Harper (24 February 2004). "Dickie Bird interview". Sport.guardian.co.uk. London. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  12. )
  13. ^ "Top Gear - Jeremy Clarkson Testing the Reliant Robin Part 2 - YouTube". YouTube.
  14. ^ "BBC One – The Young Ones". BBC.co.uk. 22 December 2010. Retrieved 13 September 2012.
  15. ^ "No. 60009". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 2011. p. 9.
  16. ^ "New Year Honours: Dickie Bird 'bowled over' as sporting heroes awarded". Sheffield Telegraph. 31 December 2011. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
  17. ^ "The University of Huddersfield's 2010 Honorary Award recipients". Hud.ac.uk. Huddersfield University. Archived from the original on 10 July 2010. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  18. ^ "MCC Honorary Life Members". MCC. Retrieved 16 March 2021.
  19. ^ "UK | England | Dickie Bird's statue is revealed". BBC News. 30 June 2009. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
  20. ^ "Barnsley's prank-hit Dickie Bird statue raised". BBC News. BBC. 1 November 2013. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
  21. ^ "Celebrities' open letter to Scotland – full text and list of signatories". The Guardian. 7 August 2014. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  22. ^ "Dickie Bird on shielding through the Covid-19 lockdown". BBC. 12 March 2021. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
  23. ^ "Ask Steven: The mystery of the missing batsman | Cricinfo Magazine". ESPN Cricinfo. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  24. ^ "Umpire and referee records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru". Cricinfo. 22 June 2021. Archived from the original on 24 June 2021. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
  25. ^ "Umpire and referee records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru". Cricinfo. 22 June 2021. Archived from the original on 24 June 2021. Retrieved 22 June 2021.

External links