Former Leicestershire and England all-rounder Jack Birkenshaw is next guest speaker at Bassetlaw Umpires Association

The Bassetlaw Umpires Association will hold their final meeting of this winter’s programme where the guest speaker will be former Leicestershire and England all-rounder Jack Birkenshaw MBE.

Birkenshaw started his career with Yorkshire and then moved to Leicester when opportunities where thin on the ground.

In his playing career at Leicester he made nearly 500 appearances, scored four centuries, took a massive 1073 wickets, including 44 five wickets in an innings hauls and held 316 catches. He was capped five times for England and made 64 on his international debut.

His first wicket in first class cricket was that of Sunil Gavaskar and his final one was Kapil Dev.

On retirement from playing he became a first class umpire standing in over 250 matches, including two test matches and six one day internationals with four of those being in the 1983 World Cup.

He then took up coaching and was in charge when Leicester won the County Championship in 1996 and 1998.

Jack was assistant coach to the England Women’s team when they won the World Cup and World Twenty/20 competition between 2008 and 2011.

Also in 2011 he was awarded an MBE for his services to cricket.

The event takes place at Cuckney Cricket Centre on Saturday 28th March at 2.30 p.m.