Posts Tagged: Graeme Smith

0Dickie Bird to officiate over native Yorkshire

There’s an old anec­dote in the crick­et­ing career of Har­old ‘Dick­ie’ Bird in which he hit a cen­tury for York­shire in one match and found him­self dropped for the next.

With an aver­age just over 20 his first-class career was hardly spec­tac­u­lar but as an inter­na­tion­al umpire he went on to argu­ably be the best in the business.

He was well liked and enter­tain­ing, bring­ing his nat­ive York­shire straight talk­ing no non­sense approach to the pitch. Dick­ie was also seen as com­pletely neut­ral who­ever was play­ing, des­pite a deep-rooted love of both county and coun­try.… Read Full Article

0Australia steam on in battle against Proteas

When Eng­land squared up to Aus­tralia in the last Ashes series I, like many, thought the vis­it­ors would retain the urn dur­ing the five match series. It was always going to a tough­er battle than the sum­mer show­down but vic­tory was expected.

Play­er for play­er Eng­land were just too strong, weren’t they? At the time, with the standout excep­tion of middle-order maes­tro Michael Clarke, a com­bined XI of the two sides would have been dom­in­ated by the three lions. Oth­er than skip­per Clarke who would have made the com­bined side? Per­haps Dav­id Warner for Michael Car­berry? A fit Ryan Har­ris in for either Chris Trem­lett or Tim Bresnan? Cer­tainly the former, prob­ably the lat­ter. A place for Shane Wat­son? Maybe – but who would he replace? On the face of it, how­ever, Eng­land cer­tainly appeared the stronger out­fit.… Read Full Article