Pay tribute to umpire David Shepherd
David Shepherd lived a country life in the town of Instow, near Devon. A simple man, he once helped his brother run a post office. A young Shepherd switched between delivering newspapers and playing cricket.
There is little knowledge about his cricketing exploits among the fans of the game. Shepherd made his debut for Gloucestershire and smashed a century in his first game. David Shepherd ended his First-class career scoring more than 10,000 runs with a top-score of 153.
David Shepherd was an honest and a dedicated umpire - a true sportsman and pride
of ICC and Britian... He will be greatly missed. I wish BCCI/ICC will come up with an
International Tournament in memory of David Shepherd - an outstanding human being
who fought with cancer (silently) and bravely till the end.
with tears,
Herman
Cricket has lost the most honest and dedicated umpire to have taken the cricket field. Never was an umpire so convincing with his decisions that we at home, didn't even bother watching the television replay to see if he had given the correct decision. We just knew that the batsmen is out of here ! Never was an Ump so un-biased as Shep was, and never did the players ever feel he could be wrong ! Such was the respect he commanded from one and all.
His traditional 'leaps' when the score was at Nelson, indicates the man's dedication and love for the traditions of the game. Although not a superstitious man in real life, but he held on to this age old cricketing tradition till the time he last took the field to adjudicate !