Paul Bird (cricketer)

Paul James Bird (born 7 May 1971) played first-class and List A cricket for Somerset in 1994.^[1] He was born in Bristol.

In senior cricket Bird was a tail-end right-handed batsman and a right-arm fast-medium bowler. He played club cricket for Optimists CC (now known as Bristol CC) and he was a member of the Optimists team that won the National Knockout final at Lords in 1992. After playing for Optimists and appearing in one second eleven match for Gloucestershire, he joined Somerset's staff for the 1994 season and immediately broke into the first team to play in two first-class matches and five limited-overs games. In this season, for the Somerset second eleven, Bird took 39 wickets at an average of 22 - helping Somerset win the Rapid Cricketline 2nd XI Championship.

Bird signed a new two year contract with Somerset at the end of the 1994 season, but had to retire in June in the 1995 season with a serious shoulder injury picked up in pre-season training. His highlights were bowling out Brian Lara (against Warwickshire) in a List A match live on television and also claiming the wicket of Mike Atherton (against Lancashire) at Old Trafford. He did not make a lot of impact in the first eleven in his first year, as he failed to take a wicket in his two first-class games, and there were only three wickets in his List A games, with best bowling figures of one wicket for 18 runs against Glamorgan.^[2]

Bird played club cricket for Chippenham CC in the Western League Premier Division in 1999 and 2000. He has played for Claverham CC, in Somerset, since 2001 and helped them win the Bristol and Somerset League in 2004 and 2015.

He worked in sales and marketing for Imperial Tobacco for 19 years and now owns the Specialist Tobacconist 'Birds of Baldwin Street' in the city centre of Bristol.

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