Richard Keith Illingworth is a first-class cricket umpire who was an English cricketer before his foray into umpiring. He is not related to Ray Illingworth even though some people report him as the latter’s son. He was born on 23 August 1963 in Bradford, Yorkshire, England. He mainly played as a bowler in a slow left-arm orthodox style spinner but also was a Right-handed batsman.
Early Career
Illingworth played for the Worcestershire club from 1982 to 2000. He played as an opening bowler. He took eighteen first-class wickets for 45 bowls, and in one-day cricket he bowled just eight overs. In 1983 he took 48 wickets and in 1982 he took 57 wickets.
He has played in the club Natal for South African Currie Cup(1988–1989). He played the last two years of his time in the first-class county cricket career in Derbyshire (2000–2001).He has scored 7,000 first-class runs (22.45 average), and took 831 first class wickets (31.54 average) which included four first-class centuries. He has played 25 ODIs taking 68 runs in total in them and taking a total of 30 wickets. He has played 9 test matches taking a total of 128 runs in them and a total of 19 wickets. Illingworth had his most productive year in 1990, he took 75 wickets with a bowling average of 28.29. With this performance he was selected for that winter's A team tour to Pakistan and Sri Lanka. He did well in the 1992 World Cup.
His test debut was in England vs West Indies held at Nottingham at Trent Bridge on July 4, 1991. It was a five day match and went on till 9th July. In the Third Test held he took the wicket of Phil Simmons with his first ball in Test cricket, thus becoming the first bowler since Intikhab Alam in 1959/60 having achieved this feat, and only the eleventh of all time.
Umpiring career
Richard Illingworth was named in the ICC International list on 9 November 2009 and has been in the ICC's elite umpire panel from 25 June 2013. His first Test umpiring was Bangladesh vs West Indies held at Dhaka from November 13 to 17 of 2012. His first ODI was Afghanistan vs Canada held at Sharjah on 18 feb 2010. His T20I umpiring debut was
England vs Pakistan held at Cardiff in wales on Sep 7, 2010.
Stats
He umpired 16 T20I matches, 57 ODI matches and 32 test matches. He has TV umpired 7 T20I matches, 45 ODI matches and 14 test matches.
His last test match umpiring was from 22 March to 25 March, 2018 in the South Africa vs Australia match held at Cape Town, last ODI match was the New Zealand vs Pakistan held at Hamilton on January 16, 2018 and last T20I match was the New Zealand vs Pakistan match held at Mohali on Mar 22, 2016.
