David Shepherd

David Shepherd was born in Bideford in Devon on December 27, 1940. He started his career as a first class cricketer who played county cricket for Gloucestershire for 14 years as a middle order batsman. Following his county career, Shepherd qualified for umpiring in 1981 and made a debut as an umpire in the 1983 World Cup in England, when Pakistan played Sri Lanka at Swansea. His debut test as an umpire was in the 1985 Ashes Series, the fourth Test at Old Trafford, Manchester. An interesting fact about David Shepherd was, he always raised his leg whenever any score would reach 111. He stood in 92 Test matches, the last of them in June 2005, and the most for any English umpire. He also umpired in 172 ODIs, including three consecutive World Cup finals in 1996, 1999 and 2003.David married his longtime girlfriend in 2008. However, a year later he expired due to lung cancer.