It's a bye from Dickie...

DICKIE Bird has died aged 92 - but as cricket's most beloved umpire knew all too well, even the greatest innings have to come to an end.

- BY LUCY THORNTON

The idea of a sporting official becoming a national treasure is unusual but over 28 years in the long white coat, he managed it.

Partly this was due to his excellence at the job - “They all rated me the best,” he once said, listing cricketing greats including Sir Viv Richards and Sir Ian Botham.

But it was also due to his down-to-Earth humour and larger-than-life personality.

His great pal Michael Parkinson described him as a character only Shakespeare could invent, “full of life's rich juices”.

Parky, who died in 2023, added in his foreword to Dickie's autobiography: “Cricket's genius has been to accommodate his foibles and celebrate his humour. My delight has been in knowing him for all these years.

"I think I love cricket but not like Dickie Bird. I have never met anyone with such a passion for the game.”

SPECIAL

Harold Dennis Bird was born in Barnsley in 1933, the son of a coal miner.

He later wrote: “My father worked down the pit, in the bowels of the earth, from the age of 13 to 65. He lived only five years after retiring, with nothing left in him.

“He was worn out after working all those years, sometimes in an 18-inch seam, crawling on his stomach, sometimes waist deep in water.

“I would have given anything for him to have seen me umpire a Test match, but he never did. That is one of the saddest things in my life.”