Dickie Bird - Umpire Par Excellence (17 Feb 1996)

Umpire Par Excellence

Umpire Harold Bird - ``Dickie`` to friends, players and aficionados in every cranny of the cricketing commonwealth - has announced that he will retire after his next Test match. Fittingly, the game will be played at Lord`s, between England and India, two sides which still interpret cricket in a friendly-spirited language. The 22 players on that occasion, and the spectators at the ground, will doubtless pay him generous tribute. And Lord`s itself may think up some affectionate honour: the ``Dickie`` Bird Tavern, perhaps? For this umpire, as much as the as the best practitioners of cricket`s other arts, has made himself a very part of the game.

Mr Bird has been the umpire par excellence of the modern, televisual era. The camera has, over 23 years and 65 Test matches, captured both his skill and his sense of humour. Just as his chuckles between overs are beamed into the nation`s living rooms, so too is the slow-motion detail of his finely honed decisions.

Scarcely anyone groans or yowls or screams abuse when Mr Bird raises his right index finger: and players, too, in this acrimonious age of cricketers, seem always to take his judgments with docility. His fellow-umpires, whether English or foreign, hold him in the highest regard: in an interview with The Times last year, S. Venkataraghavan, Mr Bird`s heir-apparent as the world`s best umpire, declared that ``wearing the white coat together with Dickie is a source of great comfort``.

Yet if Mr bird`s celebrity is due in part to television, his impending departure may have been caused by television as well. Unkind, carping articles have appeared in the press from time to time -- especially in the last year -- drawing attention to a few of those decisions which umpires-in-the-stands are apt to call ``iffy``.

Camera technology is now utterly remorseless. Commentators today speak with the frankness and irreverence that go with our age: decisions that were once described as ``touch and go`` are now denounced, nakedly, as ``wrong``. The margin of error that umpires have enjoyed -- and should continue to do so -- has all but vanished. Mr Bird is still an astonishingly good umpire, but television has shown that he too has his moments of fallibility: the criticism has rankled.

His departure will rob the game of a great showman, and a little of its rectitude. But it may free Mr Bird for some less taxing pursuits. For 30 years or more he has turned his back on marriage -- being, as he puts it, ``married to cricket``. Perhaps there will be time, at last, for a Mrs Bird. How`s that?

Source :: Daily News (Sri Lanka)