Richie Benaud, cricket's most famous commentator, has died age 84
By B.R.
A CONFECTIONERY stall. Why a confectionery stall? When Ian Botham smashed Jeff Lawson into the stands during the 1981 Ashes series, the commentator, in a languid Aussie lilt so in contrast to the brutality of the stroke, proclaimed: “No point looking for that, let alone chasing it. It’s gone into the confectionery stall and back out again.”
For Richie Benaud, the man who uttered those famous words, it was perhaps the perfect allusion. Listening to Mr Benaud, a much-loved Australian cricketer and commentator who died on April 10th, one could quite easily imagine him a quaint traditionalist (did they even still have confectionery stands at cricket grounds in 1981?). As the most famous commentator in the sport, he was the reassuring voice of summer in both northern and southern hemispheres. Somehow, it was comforting to know that wherever it was cricket season, whether January in Australia or July in England, Mr Benaud’s gentle tones would be describing the great game. Like the fictional confection being disturbed by Mr Botham, his voice brought with it the seeming sweetness and innocence of a Sunday village green game.
Yet, for all his traditional values; his unbending belief in fair play; the feeling of being part of a continuous history that his decades at the microphone seemed to bring to listeners, Mr Benaud was no establishment shill. In 1977 he was an influential force behind Kerry Packer when he shook up the sleepy, white-flannelled world of cricket by luring the best players to the breakaway World Series. While the players who defected were shunned by their countries, the innovations that World Series cricket brought—from coloured clothing to paying the sportsmen their worth—ultimately changed the game for good. It was typical of Mr Benaud’s outlook. While other cricketers of his generation sniffed haughtily at the fast-paced Twenty20 format that was sweeping the world, he embraced it.
Before he became the voice of cricket, Mr Benaud was a fine and innovative player; the first to score 2,000 runs while also taking 200 wickets. His deep, strategic understanding of the game was honed as a captain. He led Australia in 28 Tests, never losing a series. It also came through his bowling. Mr Benaud was one of his generation’s great proponents of leg spin, that hardest and most cerebral of disciplines. In total, between 1952 and 1964, he took 248 wickets in 63 Test matches. He could bat, too, scoring 2,201 Test runs with three centuries. All in all, it might be claimed that no one understood the game the way that Mr Benaud did.
When people talked of him, the description that seemed most natural was “authoritative”. Other adjectives recur too, such as mellifluous and laconic. Fellow commentators, all of them in awe, explain that Mr Benaud didn’t feel the need to fill every silence, like hot air rushing into a vacuum. Long periods of dead air were fine with him: let the cricket speak for itself; talk only when you have something to add. He needed only two words to describe the denouement of the 2005 Ashes Test at Edgbaston, the most exciting in years (see video below from 8:45). With Australia needing just three runs to win and a solitary wicket in hand, Steve Harmison produced a snorter to Michael Kasprowicz. “Jones?” enquired Mr Benaud, as the ball looked as if it had been gloved to the England wicketkeeper. Then, as the camera cut to the umpire and a raised finger: “Bowden!”. Lesser commentators would have filled the drama with platitudes. Mr Benaud allowed the images of joy and pain to speak for themselves. Today, for any cricket fan conjuring up the day, those two words are as essential as the pictures.
Mr Benaud died in his hometown of Sydney, aged 84, having succumbed to skin cancer. Such was the affection and respect in which he was held that Tony Abbott, the Australian prime minister, offered him a state funeral. That might be fitting for an icon of a cricket-mad nation. However, one can’t help but wonder whether Mr Benaud would have approved of such fuss.
