“Dickie and I had a very good relationship and we exchanged many stories including the nickname Whispering Death. Not sure people who don’t know me appreciate the name fully as ‘death’ is never something you want to be associated with, but people in the game got it, I think,” remarked Holding
Umpire Dickie Bird looks on as West Indies’s Michael Holding delivers a thunderbolt to an England batsman during the 1976 Test at the Oval in London. (right) Dickie Bird (left) gives Mike Atherton out LBW in his last Test match, between India and England at Lord’s, London, in 1996. Pics/Getty Images
Apart from the 66 Test matches and 69 one-day internationals Harold ‘Dickie’ Bird umpired in across a 23-year global cricket umpiring career, he also earned the distinction of coining one of the finest nicknames for a cricketer. Michael Holding, the great West Indies fast bowler, was called Whispering Death by Bird, who first umpired him in the 1976 Test series in England.
Passed away at home
Yorkshire County Cricket Club announced on Tuesday that Bird, 92, passed away in his Yorkshire home. “He [Bird] was a great umpire, respected by all and loved by many,” Holding, 71, told mid-day from the Cayman Islands on Tuesday.
“Dickie and I had a very good relationship and we exchanged many stories including the nickname Whispering Death. Not sure people who don’t know me appreciate the name fully as ‘death’ is never something you want to be associated with, but people in the game got it, I think,” remarked Holding.
Michael Holding
Whispering Death features a lot in Bird’s 1997 autobiography. “With other fast bowlers I was always aware of them pounding up behind me, getting closer, until they exploded into action by my side. With Holding it was different. It was so quiet,” Bird wrote.
Oval 1976, where the West Indies ended the series 3-0, got mentioned too. In the build-up to the series, England captain Tony Greig famously said that he’d like to make the West Indians grovel, something that enraged Clive Lloyd’s men.
Greig, as expected, had a hard time whenever he was at the crease. It is believed that his presence seemed to take away all the fatigue that the fast bowlers may have endured until then. A flat pitch was laid out for the fifth and final Test, but Bird said that “Holding repeatedly beat the English batsmen by sheer pace through the air” for a match haul of 14-149. Holding had Greig bowled cheaply in both innings. The Jamaican figured in Bird’s Best of the World squad which had India’s Sunil Gavaskar opening the innings with South Africa’s Barry Richards.
Bird had the experience of umpiring a Test in Mumbai — the opening game of the India vs West Indies series in 1994-95. Suresh Shastri, who was the TV umpire for that Test recalled how particular Bird was about being on time to leave for the ground.
Always punctual
“If any of us was even a few seconds late, he’d make a call to our rooms. I noticed that he was very nervous in that Test. Not because he was afraid of umpiring on a spinning Indian pitch, but because he didn’t want to commit mistakes on a track that had turn. Interestingly, he came into his dressing room and threw his cap in frustration over having to umpire when there were several fielders close to the bat.
He was supposed to umpire the next Test at Nagpur, but decided to go home. When we parted ways, he presented me with a signed white umpire’s cap,” Shastri told mid-day.
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