William Howard Frindall, (3 March 1939 – 30 January 2009) was an English cricket scorer and statistician, who was familiar to cricket followers as a member of the Test Match Special commentary team on BBC radio. He was nicknamed the Bearded Wonder (shortened to Bearders) by Brian Johnston for his ability to research the most obscure cricketing facts in moments, while continuing to keep perfect scorecards and because he had a beard. Angus Fraser described Frindall as "the doyen of cricket scorers" in his obituary in The Independent.
Early life
Frindall was born in Epsom, Surrey, and named after Victorian journalist William Howard Russell. He was educated at Tadworth county primary school and Reigate Grammar School and studied architecture at the Kingston School of Art. against Gloucestershire's Second XI, bowling six wicketless overs for 22 runs, and scoring one run in the second innings before he was caught and bowled. He continued as an effective fast bowler in club cricket for many years, particularly in charity matches, although his batting was somewhat agricultural. He ran a touring team, the Malta Maniacs,
He replaced the previous scorer, Arthur Wrigley, who had been the BBC scorer from 1934 up to his death in October 1965. After a trial period, Frindall continued to score for the BBC until his death, watching all 246 Test matches in England from June 1966 to 2008. Frindall's work was so meticulously accurate that the commentators would habitually trust his figures if they differed from the official scoreboard.
Opinions
Frindall was known for staunchly defending his beliefs about cricket statistics. When the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians attempted to revise the status of many 19th century and pre-war matches, which would have produced statistics that are different from the conventional, Frindall was among those who objected to their "rewriting of history". As a result, until 2022, some ACS statistics were different from those in Wisden, which is regarded as the standard. For example, the ACS awarded Jack Hobbs 199 first-class hundreds (as recorded on Cricinfo), while Wisden, the generally accepted standard, gave Hobbs his "traditional" total of 197 centuries. Wisden aligned with the ACS in 2022.
More recently, when the International Cricket Council decided to award Test and One Day International status to the matches played for the tsunami benefit and the ICC Super Series between Australia and a Rest of the World team, Frindall, in common with many statisticians and historians, disputed the ruling. As a result, Playfair and other publications to which he supplied statistics did not classify those matches as official Tests or ODIs.
Publications
His autobiography, Bearders – My Life in Cricket, was published by Orion in June 2006. Other works include the Playfair Cricket Annual, which he edited for 23 years, from 1986 until his death; He was appointed an MBE for services to cricket and broadcasting in the 2004 Queen's Birthday Honours. including "Beard of the Year".
Frindall was the first president of British Blind Sport, a charity co-ordinating sport for the blind and partially sighted.
Personal life
Frindall was married three times. He married Maureen Wesson in 1960, and they had two sons and a daughter together. After their divorce in 1970, he was married to Jacqueline Seager in May 1970. After a second divorce in 1980, he married Deborah Brown in 1992; they had a daughter. and was an accomplished after-dinner speaker, telling tales of the commentary box, which often displayed his excellent powers of mimicry; he could do Arlott and Trueman brilliantly.