The widow of much-loved cricket statistician Bill Frindall has told of his last moments in hospital.

The 69-year-old broadcaster, known the world over as the Bearded Wonder or Bearders, fell ill the day before returning to his home in Urchfont from a Lord’s Taverners tour of Dubai two weeks ago.

His wife of 17 years, Debbie Frindall, said: “He thought it was flu to begin with but he just got worse and worse. He lost his appetite, always a bad sign.”

But it was when, a week ago last Sunday, that Mr Frindall complained of difficulty in breathing that he was taken into Great Western Hospital in Swindon.

An X-ray revealed one of his lungs had collapsed. He was put on a ventilator in the hospital’s intensive care unit.

Mrs Frindall said: “It was awful to see him covered in wires and tubes. Then, on Friday morning, I was sitting by his bedside and there was a nurse beside me.

“I thought it was odd that she should be there with me and then his heart rate monitor went flat. I turned to her and said, does that mean?.... And she just nodded.

“I don’t think it has hit home yet. I can’t believe he’s gone. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing. Everyone has been so kind.”

Among those who sent their condolences were all Mr Frindall’s colleagues on BBC’s Test Match Special team.

Mrs Frindall said: “Aggers (Jonathan Agnew) phoned on Friday afternoon and I have had lovely letters from Henry Blofeld and Vic Marks.”

She added: “Bill can only have picked up the disease when he was in Dubai and it can only have been the hotel. We didn’t go anywhere else. The Lord’s Taverners are looking into it.”

The Lord’s Taverners, who organised the Dubai visit, said that no one else in the party has complained of symptoms.

The couple’s 13-year-old daughter Alice, a pupil at Lavington School, was not at the hospital when her father died.

Mrs Frindall said: “She is coping well at the moment. Alice and I are used to being home alone while Bill was away. I expect it will catch up with us at the funeral.”

The funeral service will be a private one, by invitation only, at St Michael and All Angels Church in Urchfont with a burial afterwards at the village cemetery. It will take place next week but a more public memorial service is likely to take place later on in the year.

Mr Frindall, despite threats to retire from scoring for the BBC, continued to work and covered the pre-Christmas tests in India. He told friends he was not going to cover the tests in the West Indies because the BBC would not pay expenses.

He was the BBC’s cricket statistician since 1966, when he took over from Arthur Wrigley, who had been in the post since 1934.

He has been married twice before and has three children from his first marriage to Maureen Wesson.

He and Mrs Frindall, knew each other for 13 years before getting married. They struck up a friendship when Mrs Frindall brought her class to test matches.