Billy Bowden

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Personal information
Billy Bowden
New Zealand
Full name	Brent Fraser Bowden
Nickname	Billy
Born	11 April 1963 (1963-04-11) (age 45)
	Henderson, New Zealand
Umpiring information
Tests umpired	46 (2000–present)
ODIs umpired	124 (1995–present)
IT20s umpired	5 (2005–present)
As of 9 April 2008 Source: Cricket Archive

Brent Fraser "Billy" Bowden (born 11 April 1963) is an international cricket umpire from New Zealand and is known for his dramatic signalling style. He began his career as a player until he began to suffer from rheumatoid arthritis so took up umpiring.

1 Career
2 Views
3 Signals
4 Criticisms
5 International Umpiring Statistics
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Career

In March 1995 Bowden was appointed to his first One Day International between New Zealand and Sri Lanka at Hamilton. In March 2000 he was appointed his first test match as an on-field umpire, and in 2002 he was included in the Emirates Panel of International Umpires. A year later he was asked to umpire at the Cricket World Cup in South Africa, and was chosen to be the fourth umpire in the final between Australia and India. Shortly after this he was duly promoted to the Emirates Elite Panel of ICC Umpires, of which he is still a member. He reprised his role as fourth umpire in the final of the 2007 Cricket World Cup.

Bowden was involved in an incident at the Brisbane Ashes test of 2006 in which, while standing at the square leg fielding position, Bowden was knocked to the ground by a ball which Geraint Jones had hit.^[1]

In January 2007, Bowden became the youngest umpire to officiate in 100 ODIs, with the fixture between New Zealand and Sri Lanka at Hamilton, which corresponded exactly with his first ODI in 1995. A few days later, however, Simon Taufel took the record of being the youngest umpire to officiate 100 ODIs.

[edit] Views

In 2007, Bowden expressed a series of views in an interview with the The Telegraph [1].

[edit] Signals

Because of his arthritis, it was too painful for Bowden to signal a batsman out in the conventional fashion,^[2] with a straight index finger raised above the head, and this led to the "crooked finger of doom", yet he is able to adopt a straight index finger in almost every other hand movement. He has also put his own slant on several other signals, including a "crumb-sweeping" wave of the arm to signal four, and the "double crooked finger six-phase hop" to signal a six. His signals are also toned to the situation: in Tests he tries to be more sedate, while in ODIs he is more flamboyant, and is yet more flamboyant when it comes to Twenty20.

These antics have attracted him both fans and critics alike. Martin Crowe has referred to him as Bozo the Clown, and many people^[who?] have said he should remember that cricket is for the players, not for the umpires^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Criticisms

In 2005, Bowden was criticised by the West Indies cricket team and his umpiring became the subject of a formal complaint by the West Indies Cricket Board. [2][3] Also in 2005, in a survey conducted by the Australian Cricketers Association, Australian cricketers voted Bowden the worst umpire in world cricket. [4][5][6][7][8]. In 2007, Bowden was among the four umpires and the match referee responsible for the final of the World Cup. [9] He is gently lampooned in the Beige Brigade's weekly podcast, The BYC. [10]

[edit] International Umpiring Statistics

	First	Latest	Total
Tests	New Zealand v Australia at Auckland, Mar 2000	West Indies v Sri Lanka at Port-of-Spain, Apr 2008	46
ODIs	New Zealand v Sri Lanka at Hamilton, Mar 1995	New Zealand v England at Christchurch, Feb 2008	124
20/20s	New Zealand v Australia at Auckland, Feb 2005	New Zealand v England at Christchurch, Feb 2008	5