Dickie Bird’s final flight

The outpouring of tributes following the passing of English umpire Harold Dennis Bird, known to one and all as Dickie, aged 92, in his beloved Barnsley in Yorkshire, where he was born in 1933, is a true measure of the affection and regard in which he was held by both cricketers and the larger cricket fraternity worldwide.

- 

Everyone has a favourite Dickie story, even those who never met him, and this is reflected in some of the obituaries that have appeared in Wednesday morning's dailies. Bird, who played nearly 100 matches for Yorkshire asa batsman, with the highest score of 181 not out, realised he did not have the temperament to succeed as a professional largely due to his nervous disposition, thus switching to umpiring. Even as an umpire, he was a bundle of nerves before a match and fidgety throughout. It was this eccentric nature of his which he brilliantly parlayed into building up an image of himself that not only endeared him to one and all but also made him a very rich man after his retirement, both as a bestselling a