Sharing a commentary box with Richie Benaud was an enriching, inspiring, and sometimes overwhelming experience
Mark Nicholas10-Apr-2015He was father, uncle, brother and friend. He was our conscience and our guiding light. In an age of much madness, he made sense. He held firm when others doubted and let go when those around him needed to fly. His wise counsel was without compare, his kindness unconditional. There was something elemental about him, like the wind and the rain. And he was summer’s sunshine. But now he has gone.Yes, Richie Benaud has gone. It has to be repeated to feel true. A flame that burned brightly for 84 years has flickered of late and now died. There is a darkness. If you have grown up watching cricket, you have grown up watching Richie Benaud. He was a constant in all our lives. The memories, the sights and sound of him, will live with us forever.We, that is the Channel Nine commentary team, last saw him in person at the Sydney Cricket Ground in November. When he arrived on the outfield in front of the Members Pavilion where we had gathered, there was a general shuffling. Unseen and virtually unheard of for a year since the car crash that all but ended his life in television, the news that he was to appear at the Nine Network’s launch of the “Sizzling Summer of Cricket” was greeted with immense excitement.
Mark Taylor called the fall wicket of a key Australian wicket “a tragedy”. Benaud let it rest for a couple of hours before whispering “Mark, the was a tragedy”
The crash had damaged a couple of vertebrae and the suggestion of surgery to the spine had lingered around for most of the previous Australian summer. He made no fuss of course but admitted that he was far from ready to bowl 30 overs off the reel on a hot Sydney day. The surgery never happened. Apparently, a natural fusion was already taking place. Instead, the medics found some melanomas. Radiation and chemotherapy are not anyone’s game. The treatment had taken its toll. I suggested that it had been a rough year. “Roughish,” he replied, with the understatement that has hallmarked his life.Anyway, Richie turned up bang on time for the photo shoot and though the joy in greeting him was uninhibited, we were all sad to see him so diminished. He carried himself with fortitude and typical grace but he was clearly weak. It seems absurd that he retired from the commentary box in England ten years ago, but it is a fact. On that early September day at The Oval in 2005, the producer of Channel 4’s cricket coverage, Gary Franses, had sent him across the ground to be alongside me and the others in our commentary team to say goodbye. Channel 4 had lost the rights to cricket in the UK.The crowd rose to him with as much bonhomie as they had to the England team who, moments earlier, had won the Ashes after a summer of cricket that held the nation spellbound. Moved by their enthusiasm and warmth, Benaud shed a tear. At least, so said Tony Greig, who walked with him. Richie never denied it.Benaud with Peter May after beating England 4-0 to regain the Ashes in 1958-59•Getty ImagesHe has been good to us all: always by our side, a constant source of wisdom and encouragement. No one has sold the game of cricket with greater skill, few played it with greater flair. He had some mantras: “Engage brain before mouth” is my favourite. Others include: “Don’t speak unless you can add to the picture”, which is mostly ignored by us commentators today.When Mark Taylor switched from the playing field to the hallowed Nine Network commentary team, he called the fall wicket of a key Australian wicket “a tragedy”. Benaud let it rest for a couple of hours before gently tapping Taylor on the shoulder and whispering “Mark, the was a tragedy”. Taylor said that Benaud had once used “tragedy” while commentating himself. (Later during the summer, we heard it on an archive clip. Gold!)The stories go on and on. Another favourite is Michael Slater’s first stint on air alongside him. Terrified, Slater was almost unable to speak until Brian Lara under-edged a cut shot that whistled past leg stump by no more than a hair. “Ooooo,” said Slats, “that just snuck under Lara’s bat… er Rich, is there the word ‘snuck’ in the English language?” Benaud paused the immortal pause before bring the microphone to his lips. “I can think of one or two ‘ucks’ in the English language, Michael, but ‘snuh’ isn’t amongst them!”
“I can think of one or two ‘ucks’ in the English language, Michael, but ‘snuh’ isn’t amongst them”
His minimalism was a lifestyle. The footprint was everywhere, though best illustrated in his television work both in front of the camera and behind the microphone. Witness: “West indies cruising to victory here, all Carl Hooper has to do is keep his head as Shane Warne switches to bowl round the wicket into the rough outside leg stump.” At which point, Hooper charges down the pitch and has a mighty heave at Warne. The ball spins and catches the leading edge of Hooper’s bat. It is about to drop into Steve Waugh’s hands as Benaud says: “Oh Carl” and nothing more.Or the tightest finish at Edgbaston in 2005. Three needed to win, Australia nine down with Michael Kasprowicz on strike. Steve Harmison bowls a bouncer that catches Kasprowicz’s glove as he fends away. Geraint Jones dives down the leg side and holds on. Billy Bowden raises his finger. Benaud sums up this monumental moment with: “Jones! Bowden! Kasprowicz the man to go” and leaves it at that. Magic indeed.The Benauds have been private people. He and his English wife, Daphne, lived in an apartment at Coogee and watched the surf roll in each morning. After a long layoff they had started their 40-minute sunrise walks again, not a minute more or less. These had given him relative strength and given her breathing space. They were inseparable. Her loss will be beyond pain. When Richie bought the drinks he would always say, “Don’t thank me, thank Mrs Benaud”. She is a terrific woman who began life in and around the game as PA to Jim Swanton years ago but fell in love with the dashing former captain of Australia.Benaud was an Australian icon and the voice of its summer•Getty ImagesThey lived in summer for 50 years, travelling across the world each April and September to cover the game for myriad networks and newspapers. Benaud’s crusades to English shores actually began as a player in 1953 when he came by boat with Lindsay Hassett’s touring Australians. They were at sea for five weeks and made their way around the shires for the five months that followed.By the time Channel 4 nicked the television rights off the BBC, Benaud was a must-get and entitled to first class on British Airways. After Channel 4’s first day on air Giles Smith reviewed the coverage in the . He opened with a sentence that went something like this: “If Channel 4 put a programme to air about sex that revealed naked transvestites debating with one another the merits of their actions and then giving a display of their activities, it might just get away with it as long as Richie Benaud was there to say ‘Morning everyone’. With one of those superb catchphrases, Benaud had repaid the network’s faith and introduced the game to its new, initially uncertain, audience.At the end of the summer of 2002, we took him to lunch at The Ivy in London. The room was full of the great and the good – Frost and Parkinson, Mrs Beckham, Michael Winner, to name a few – but it went silent when he glided in. You should have seen the punters gawp. And the waiters too. In general, Richie kept himself to himself, which is a powerful weapon. Because of it, public appearances became a parade.
His cricket can be summed up easily enough – a fine legspinner, dashing batsman, an excellent fieldsman, but, above all, a brilliant and intuitive captain
His cricket can be summed up easily enough – a fine legspinner, dashing batsman, an excellent fieldsman, but, above all, a brilliant and intuitive captain. Peter May brought a team of stellar names to Australia in 1958-59 and was beaten 4-0 by Benaud’s young adventurers. It was ever thus. Australia has cricket in its soul and Benaud will always remain a part of that soul.I miss him already. I’m sure we all do. To have him back amongst us that day in November brought such pleasure. Bill Lawry was there too, up from Melbourne where he looks after his wife, Joy. Bill was very funny on the stage, telling Richie that the melanomas might be a bane now but, back then, with his hair flowing, shirt unbuttoned almost to the waist and gold chain sparkling in the sunshine, he looked a million dollars. They were quite a pair, Bill with his comedic talents and Richie with his natural dry wit.The last time I saw him at all was on the telly in a quite brilliant Australia Day advertisement for Australian lamb. Captain Cook is at sea, on the , one supposes. A mobile phone rings. He reaches into the pocket of his naval frock coat and answers it. The scene switches to Richie, tongs in hand, back home at the barbeque. “Cookie!” says Richie. “G’day Rich,” says Captain Cook. “Fancy an Australia Day barby round at my place?” asks one great man of another. Cook looks to his second-in-command and then to some of the midshipmen around him and asks if they fancy it. Of course they do! Richie then calls various other iconic figures in Australia’s history, including Ned Kelly no less. They are all in. Have a look on YouTube. It is well worth it. The ad tells us much about Benaud’s sense of humour, timing and perspective. And it tells us the extent of the esteem in which he is held by all Australians.The Benauds in Sydney in 2006•Getty ImagesWhen modern cricket folk talked of “aggression” and “sledging” as “part of the game”, Richie raised his eyebrows and cringed. Such attitudes were not part of his game, nor of the game played by Keith Miller, Garry Sobers, Ted Dexter or the Nawab of Pataudi. If modern cricketers want to do the Benaud legacy justice, they should reward his unwavering faith in their abilities and performance by ceasing such mean-spirited behaviour as of today. The day Richie died.I just googled the word “dignity”. It says: “The state or quality of being worthy of honour or respect.” There you go, that is Richie Benaud in a simple definition. From the first day of a glorious cricket career to his last as a universally admired and loved communicator of the most beautiful game, he was the very best. Our privilege was to have sat at his table.
