Richie Benaud, King of Cricket Commentary

Richie Benaud is 75 and still appears on Channel 9’s cricket coverage. His voice is weaker than it once was, but he continues to provide warmth, authority, and a soothing tone to the soundtrack of the Australian summer. As a mate of mine put it, he’s the only commentator who you never argue with. I think that’s stretching the point a little; there are two others whose words I greatly respect: Tony Grieg and (a recent discovery) Mark Nicholas. Further, during an Australia–South Africa Test match about 10 years ago, Richie let slip about the stupidest thing I’ve heard on television: “And here we have a kite … possibly motorized.”

An interesting facet of this great man (great player in the 1950s and probably 1960s; great commentator for decades) is his incurable old-school charm. He has an enormous amount of consideration for the person watching, wanting to be entertained by and informed on the great game. In two interviews I’ve read, he mentioned the great responsibility that comes with being invited into viewers’ living rooms. He spoke of the value of opinions he receives in the streets, despite the hassle of being so well known. And at the end of a radio interview recently, which I missed but which I gather was aimed at promoting his new book, he sounded most sincere as he thanked the host and her listeners. His modesty is his greatness.

It’s also his mystery. He lives a simple life, except that he lives comfortably in three countries (Australia, England, France), has a dream job, and has a cosy relationship with Australia’s richest person, Channel 9 boss Kerry Packer. Packer is a fierce, but fiercely loyal, employer, and will be genuinely grateful, not merely commercially grateful, at the decades of service Richie has provided.

I thought he was planning to retire a few years ago, and summer after summer have been relieved to find it hasn’t happened. It now appears he intends to keep going until he “falls off his twig” (his words), or his two career advisers (Packer and his wife Daphne) tell him it’s time to pull up stumps.

Mark Nicholas has shown public gratitude to Richie as a mentor in a newspaper column, and I think he’s the right person to front the next generation of cricket commentators. He employs the same economy of expression, highlighting the themes of the day’s play rather than the minutae. And his voice has a similar relaxing quality. The only problem is that he’s English: we’ve only heard him on Australian television because of Australia’s recent historic stouch with the old – and renewed – enemy. But if Richie made a career of following the summer between Australia and England to provide his expertise wherever it was required, I don’t see why Nicholas can’t do the same. There’s still a few years to pass on the baton.