By Charles Randall at Headingley
First day of four: Yorkshire 20-0 v Warwickshire
DICKIE BIRD'S last first- class match as umpire began with his arrival through the Headingley gates at 8am yesterday, six hours early for what rain turned into a 2pm start.
Bird was umpiring when snow once fell in June at Buxton, but rain in Leeds was an all too familiar story for September, reducing the day's ration of cricket to seven overs.
The Yorkshire and Warwickshire teams lined up to honour Bird when he entered the field with Ray Julian, his colleague, and the home club presented him with a water colour portrait for the wall at his Barnsley home.
Bird said he would be spending his retirement years travelling the world watching cricket, helping umpires and, perhaps, doing his bit for Yorkshire.
Financially he has been greatly assisted by the ``few bob or two'' he has made from his autobiography which, with 360,000 copies sold in hardback, has become the biggest selling sports book of all time.
He is due to take delivery of a sapphire blue Jaguar XK8 next Monday, which he ordered before realising he would have to demolish part of a wall to fit the car into his drive at White Rose Cottage.
Craig White and Michael Vaughan appeared in little trouble after David Byas had won the toss for Yorkshire.
Day 2: Wood sustains Yorkshire hope
By Charles Randall at Headingley
Second day of four: Yorkshire 311-5 v Warwickshire
YORKSHIRE were indebted to Matthew Wood's undefeated 160 for their chance to dictate this match against a 10-man Warwickshire side, though their outside chance of the title began to look slim, judging by events at Leicester yesterday.
Yorkshire started the penultimate round of matches in fifth place, 21 points behind Leicestershire, whose expected victory over Essex would leave David Byas's team a near-impossible task to catch them.
Warwickshire were vulnerable in an unexpected way at Headingley yesterday when Anurag Singh had to leave the match on the second morning, having discovered that the shin, hit during last week's defeat by Leicestershire, had become infected.
Already without Brian Lara, who was ruled out by a knee injury, Warwickshire became more dependant on their bowling than they would have liked. And Wood closed that avenue.
Wood's third and highest hundred of his debut championship season, at the age of 21, could hardly be faulted. It was achieved on an awkward, slow pitch against more than useful bowling and amid a disintegrating Yorkshire innings.
The havoc that Tim Munton, Ed Giddins and Dougie Brown caused, after a start delayed for half an hour by rain, was contained, and Wood reached 137 before he offered his first chance.
Michael Vaughan had his off-stump flattened by Giddins playing no stroke, and Munton bowled Craig White neck and crop, but Wood's mix of defence strokeplay endured to the close.
Wood's third fifty took only 54 balls as the bowling began to wilt. Richard Blakey stayed with him for 41 overs in a fifth-wicket stand of 137. Blakey's share was 29.
Day 3: Warwickshire skittled out by Hutchison
By Charles Randall at Headingley
Third day of four: Warwicks (84 & 190-7) trail Yorkshire (408-6) by 134 runs
YORKSHIRE'S chances of finishing as runners-up improved yesterday when they bundled out Warwickshire for 84 in 23.3 overs - the shortest innings, if not the lowest, of the competition this summer. Seamer Paul Hutchison returned figures of six for 25, a batting line-up short of confidence and already a man short failed to cope with the left-armer's swing and the domino effect set in quite early.
Warwickshire's collapse was hardly surprising because run-making had become a chore this year. Their improvement second time around was almost entirely because Nick Knight, the stand-in captain, supplemented his morning duck with a top-notch evening hundred.
Knight's wristy power pierced an attacking field regularly for his fourth championship century of the season but Yorkshire should be guaranteed maximum points this morning, with good weather expected.
Hutchison mostly bent the ball across the right-handers - with Dougie Brown, for example, held at second slip off the back of his bat as he aimed to leg - and his deceptive slant accounted for two left-handers, Knight and David Hemp.
Knight edged a kicking delivery to slip and Hemp had his stumps spreadeagled as he tried to drive. Through the day 10 snicks were held and none dropped, though an alert Richard Blakey had scoop up David Byas's juggle to dismiss Brown in the evening.
Yorkshire tried to settle the issue when Matthew Hoggard clean-bowled Neil Smith and Keith Piper in successive balls, but Warwickshire achieved one small victory by denying them the satisfaction.
Yorkshire's innings was closed immediately Matthew Wood became the second Yorkshire player, after Darren Lehmann, to reach 200 this summer - an achievement that had, surprisingly, happened only once before since the war.
Yorkshire have offered to release Richard Stemp from his contract after signing another left-armer - Chris Ellison, 19, a Yorkshire-born spinner playing for Cornwall.
Day 4: Bird bows out on first-class stage
By Charles Randall at Headingley
Yorkshire (408-6 dec) beat Warwickshire (84 & 297) by an innings and 27 runs
DICKIE BIRD walked off the field doffing his white cap to the small crowd here yesterday, having raised his finger to signal the end of his umpiring career in first-class cricket.
The moment arrived at 2.07pm. Bird answered a bellowed appeal to give Ed Giddins, Warwickshire's last batsman, out lbw, and Yorkshire had won by an innings and 27 runs to take a temporary second place in the table.
There was irony in the finish, because Bird was renowned as a ``not-outer'', an umpire who always gave the batsman any slight benefit of the doubt. But this time there was certainty when he gave Giddins, and himself, out. ``It was plumb. I don't mind 'em like that,'' he said afterwards.
``I feel very sad, and I shall miss all this, no question. I'm glad, though, I'm finishing at Headingley where I came to nets for the first time as a 15-year-old boy. It seems like yesterday.''
Bird spent almost 10 minutes signing autographs on the boundary before seeking the haven of the umpires' room, where he joined Ray Julian, his white-coated colleague and former team-mate in his Leicestershire days.
The tears did not flow from this lovable, emotional man. Today's AXA League match between the same teams will be his final task. The crowd will be large if the weather holds, and that should be when the finality of the occasion tightens his throat.
Bird will be left to take stock as a wealthy man, planning some comfortable retirement years of world-wide travel, which this son of a Barnsley miner could hardly have imagined when he joined Yorkshire as a professional batsman in 1956.
An important turn-up has been the phenomenal success of his autobiography, which will gross for him at least £1 million. The most popular British sports book of all time has so far sold 360,000 copies in hardback, with a paperback edition to follow.
On this evidence nobody could begrudge his recent honorary membership of the Cricket Writers' Club, and he has been commissioned by his publishers for a follow-up book of anecdotes. Roddy Bloomfield, his editor, has acknowledged Bird's ``extraordinary wide appeal''.
It is gratifying for Bird, a meticulous professional, that he has earned respect among his peers as a very good umpire. The wide appeal has been based on his eccentricity. An admiring Ian Botham once described him as ``bonkers'' and nearly everyone now knows what he meant.
Bird's first-class farewell yesterday was relatively low-key, because Yorkshire had only two Warwickshire wickets to take to secure their fourth consecutive victory, and only a few hundred spectators turned up for a day that could have lasted two balls.
As it turned out, a fighting 83 from Ashley Giles made Yorkshire wait until after lunch to take maximum points. He produced 36 overs of excellent batting with Nick Knight, who carried his bat for 130. Eventually Giles had his middle stump uprooted by Gavin Hamilton, who removed Giddins three balls later.
Giles showed ability beyond most tailenders' aspirations. Several extra-cover drives off Hamilton screamed to the boundary, though one attempt at repetition - an inside edge past off stump for four - spoilt the effect slightly.
Warwickshire, for all the debate about signing Brian Lara, showed they were simply not good enough for a high championship placing. Defeat in Leeds meant they had lost to all five of the title-contending counties.