Bill Frindall 1939-2009

The Bearded Wonder has been given out - a bad piece of umpiring if ever there was one. He has died of Legionnaire's disease at the age of 69. Born on the first day of the famous 'Timeless Test' in 1939, Frindall joined the BBC in 1966, the year that Gary Sobers was strutting his stuff across the cricket grounds of England, and he worked on Test Match Special from then on. Before the advent of Cricinfo, no serious student of the game could afford to be without Frindall's Wisden Book of Test Cricket. There are notices of his death here and here.