Dickie Bird may well have been the most consistent, the most famous and the most loved umpire in cricket history and yet when he pitched up at the grounds of ambitious county teams in the 1970s and 80s there would often be groans in the home dressing room.

Dickie’s presence was bound to enliven the game but it would also make it harder to win. Dickie was a cautious umpire, who required certainty before he raised his finger to send a batsman back to the pavilion (often with a bellowed “That’s Out”). To win games, which usually meant taking 20 wickets, the bold captain would prefer one of the more cavalier umpires on the circuit, who might later boast of his hundred victims by the end of May, to be officiating.

Dickie shunned such frivolities; he might regard it as an insult to the game he loved more than anything. A lifelong bachelor, he would later declare, maybe with a tinge of regret, that he was always married to the game of cricket.

Until he took up umpiring in 1970 Dickie’s professional career had been undistinguished. As a young man he played for Barnsley CC alongside Michael Parkinson, who remained a constant friend, and soon they were joined in the team by Geoffrey Boycott, who was several years younger but destined to score rather more runs than the other two. Boycott has since acknowledged Bird’s natural talent while also referencing, to the surprise of no one, that he was often hampered by nerves.

However in 1959 Bird managed to seize his chance at Bradford against Glamorgan since Yorkshire’s regular opener, Ken Taylor, was playing for England. He hit an unbeaten 181 but was promptly dropped for the next game as Taylor returned to the side.

By the start of the following season Bird had joined Leicestershire and after a promising start there the runs dried up, injuries intervened and his confidence dipped. So he left the club in 1964 and spent five seasons as the cricket professional for Paignton CC in Devon – in later life he would often return there for holidays.

Umpiring is not usually recommended for those of a nervous disposition but it soon became apparent that Dickie was in his element in a white coat. Sometimes he still gave the impression of being a nervous wreck – why else would he turn up for his second game at the Oval in 1970 five hours before the start, which meant that early risers in Kennington could have spotted him trying to clamber over the walls to gain entry to the ground?

But once on the field he kept making sound decisions and his integrity and devotion to the game was transparent. By 1973 he was umpiring at Test level and in 1975 he was a natural selection to take charge of the first World Cup final at Lord’s. As ever it was not entirely straightforward for Dickie.

That final was a brilliant contest which had Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillee, Australia’s last pair, pursuing an unlikely victory against West Indies in the evening sunshine. With three overs to go Lillee was caught at midwicket by Roy Fredericks.

In an era when pitch invasions were routine the crowd rushed on to the field unaware that Lillee had been caught off a no-ball, which prompted Fredericks to hurl the ball at the stumps to effect a run‑out; he missed them and the ball disappeared into an increasingly crowded outfield. Thomson and Lillee kept running until order was eventually restored, whereupon Dickie asked the batsmen how many they had run. “About 17” was the reply. I think the umpires awarded no more than four.

When the match was over another pitch invasion ensued during which Dickie’s prized white cap was snatched from his head. In his autobiography he recounts how he retrieved it the following year from a bus driver in London.

Stuff happened to Dickie. In his third Test at Lord’s in 1973 there was a bomb scare so he opted to sit in the middle of the square throughout the delay on the grounds that no bomb could hurt him there. Good thinking even though this proved to be a hoax. On a beautiful, cloudless Test‑match day at Headingley in 1988 a drain burst under the soil, where the bowlers began their run-up, and Bird had to lead the players from the field to the bemusement and anger of the spectators. He would recount such tales with an anguished earnestness that was hilarious.

His capacity to provoke a smile was one of his assets as an umpire. He made many, many good decisions but where he truly excelled was in defusing situations in the middle that were getting out of hand. In an Ashes Test Lillee (again) was hugely frustrated and at his most belligerent, abusing one and all. Bird summoned him for a prolonged chat. I’m not sure what he said but by the end of the conversation Lillee could no longer contain his laughter. And the game could continue on an even keel.

Sometimes it was tricky to tell whether Dickie was being unwittingly hilarious or cunningly using humour to his advantage. I suspect that it was the latter a little more often than we first thought. He knew how to tell a good story – like being given a brick of an early mobile phone by the new batsman, Allan Lamb, then putting it in the pocket of his white coat before being phoned by Ian Botham minutes later.

His autobiography was spectacularly successful, selling more than a million copies. Like Neville Cardus’s quotes there may have been the odd embellishment to reveal a “higher truth”. But the truth is that every cricket lover from Barnsley, Bridgetown or Brisbane will remember Dickie Bird with huge affection … and a smile.