WHEN IT emerged last winter that David Pigot was dying of cancer, the general reaction of the Irish cricket world was one of disbelief. `Pigo', who died at the weekend, had seemed ageless, evergreen, a permanent fixture, and the notion that this fittest of 66 year olds was leaving, us was hard to, take.
My first glimpse of him was towards the end of his international career, at an Ireland v MCC game at College Park in 1974. I was oddly fascinated by the criss cross strapping on his batting pads and his shock of silver hair, but also surprised by the sprightliness with which he ran between the wickets and chased every ball to the boundary. For a 44 year old, his enthusiasm was remarkable.
His international career had begun eight years previously, on an occasion when the international selectors got it just about right. Their four new caps were Pigot, Brendan O'Brien, Roy Tarrens and Ivan Anderson, all of whom were to provide excellent service in subsequent years.
Pigot had argued a persuasive case during the previous season, winning the Marchant Cup in Leinster with an average of 65, when the standard of bowling in Dublin was better than it is now and when the Phoenix batting revolved around their opening batsman.
Pigot retained his spot on the international side for 42 consecutive games and played twice more as a replacement. One of his few regrets was that he failed, to ever reach three figures, being dismissed twice on 88 in the same season, 1970.
Typical of an opener, his strength was his back foot play. One former Phoenix team mate reckons that approximately 11,000 of his 14,000 runs in Leinster senior cricket came from cuts, pulls and hooks. He revelled in competing with quick bowlers and was as courageous in his dealings with the likes of John Price and Keith Boyce as he was in confronting his recent illness. The slow bowlers caused him a few more problems - apparently, be never really came to terms with Gerry Duffy's slow in dippers.
If this was so, it would not have been for lack of application. All opponents will testify to his stickiness, even in the friendliest of club friendlies, only last season, he scored a typically determined half century for Enda McDermott's XI against the Free Foresters in London. Earlier in the summer, he had caused Soweto's new ball pair no end of frustration.
He will be greatly missed.
. An MCC, squad is currently touring on this side of the Irish Sea, travelling from Belfast to Dublin tomorrow and playing a Southern Schools Under 17 side at Rathmines on Thursday and the Combined Universities at College Park on Friday. The squad is led by Irish captain Alan Lewis and includes two other internationals, Angus Dunlop and Jason Molins. The remainder of the party consists of old campaigners like Bob Cooke (formerly of Essex) and promising youngsters.
The Combined Universities team will be selected after this week's Intervarsities tournament in Belfast, which finishes on Thursday. Two new universities are represented this year, DCU and the University of Limerick, bringing the total number of teams participating to eight.
. Aspiring umpires are strongly advised to acquire a copy of Alan Tuffery's recent publication Thinking About Cricket Umpiring (Bull Meadow Press, Box 5177, Dublin. £4.99 UK, £4.50 in Ireland, + p&p).
The 64 page book contains stories from actual play, designed to illustrate aspects of law and practice. It is organised in the same sequence as The Laws of Cricket, and has an index so that readers, can easily find their way to sections of particular interest - Tuffery has managed to achieve just the right combination of fact, opinion, anecdote and advice.
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