A fond farewell to cricket's Bearded Wonder

Bill Frindall, the Test Match Special scorer who died yesterday of legionnaire's disease aged 69, was a notcher who became an institution. He had the most mundane and unsung job in cricket but somehow he turned it into an art form.

Frindall joined the radio programme in 1966 when it had not long been part of the national consciousness. He scored the recent Test series in India before Christmas.

If the idea of scorer as personality seemed bizarre, Frindall never let it affect his meticulous approach to the work. Although he could sometimes seem a touch offhand with his colleagues in the commentary box, his flow of information was invariably accurate, quick and ceaseless.

Jonathan Agnew, the BBC's cricket correspondent, said: "He was part of the TMS fabric and everyone in the world knew who Bill Frindall was. He brought to life this weird and wonderful world of cricket scoring that other people might find tedious and boring. He made scoring into an art form."

Frindall gained renown for his interjections – sometimes testy – and if anybody could be said to have been responsible for his prominence it was the late Brian Johnston, who popularised the nickname "The Bearded Wonder".

His work was to go beyond scoring for TMS after he took over from the long-established Arthur Wrigley. He had edited the Playfair Cricket Annual – if Wisden is the bible of cricket, the little paperback is the bible abridged – for 23 successive seasons and had waged a gallant fight against websites and databases which made statistics so immediately available. But he also produced a succession of seminal works on Test match records. He tracked down the scorecards dating back to the earliest Test ever played in 1877 and his brief, lively annotations set them apart from anything done before.

Frindall was proud to have been born during the so-called "Timeless Test" in Durban in March 1939, which ended in a draw after nine days. It made his later calling seem entirely appropriate.

"He had this incredible scoring system that made every ball an event," Agnew said. "If you referred back to something that had happened earlier in the day, he would know exactly which delivery you were talking about.

"He could recall anything, that's what stood him apart ... And if you had a query, he would have the answer in seconds, his records were so meticulous."

Hugh Morris, managing director of England cricket, said: "He will be much missed not only by millions of radio listeners worldwide but also by the fraternity of scorers whose work he did so much to champion." The Bearded Wonder made scoring sexy.