Dickie Bird - Umpiring Days

Umpiring Days

He stood in his first county game in 1970. Three years later, he officiated at his first Test match, England v New Zealand at Headingley Stadium in Leeds. The other umpire was Charlie Eliott as England won by an innings and one run. He gained a reputation for stopping play for weather and not giving batsmen out LBW.

Bird's attention to detail was placed under scrutiny at the Centenary Test between England and Australia at Lord's in 1980. Although the Saturday of this particular match had mostly pleasant sunshine, Bird and his fellow umpire, David Constant, refused to let play start because of the previous night's rain; parts of the outfield were still too waterlogged, according to the officials. Angry MCC members scuffled with Constant as he and the team captains returned to 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.

A pitch invasion followed the West Indies 17-run win in the inaugural Cricket World Cup. A number of players and umpires had items of their playing outfits "souvenired" by the crowd. A year later, Bird was a passenger on a bus in South London, when he noticed 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 off his head at the World Cup final... we all ran onto the field and I won the race."

One of Bird's strengths was that he was able 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 a Queen was to visit that day.

At the beginning of his 66th and final Test in 1996, the two teams – India and England – formed a "guard of honour" as he came out, and he received a standing ovation from the crowd. Bird, an emotional man, was in tears. 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 took place at Scarborough Beach in Perth, Australia.