Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

Arthur Crabtree wrote:Really. It feels very sudden. Maybe people in Australia were expecting this. My impression is that Richie is seen as a national treasure over there. Of course he is.

I guess, for practically everyone, he is a voice they grew up with. For me it was him in tandem with Jim Laker on BBC. I like to think that these two contemporary spinners from the opposite sides of the world, symbolised a bond between the two countries which I still hope exists in our shared interest in cricket. Richie represented a bit more though.

He seems to be the remainder of the civility within the game. Whenever a voice off camera welcomes another person we can't see, we are reminded of Richie. Whenever the covers come off the strip, in the early morning, and we sense the commentator look across the expanses of the ground, and the moisture clearing in the early sun, and says 'good morning everyone', we think of Richie. Aussies will have more personal memories, but the fact that he provokes sentiment from someone born on the edge of the UK, at least shows the great extent of his reach. And we understood that when he said goodbye to the UK in 2005.

He was a journalist, who taught himself the job through stepping out of the game into newspaper offices. Maybe it was the times, but he didn't rely on the ghostwriter, he learned how to do the job.

In his career, I think of the tied Test, and (earlier) the Australian team of the fifties, Benaud, Lindwall, Miller, Harvey... Before my time, but evoking past contests with Trueman, Statham, Cowdrey and May. An esteemed name, on and off the pitch, over a huge timescale, his lifetime.

sussexpob wrote:In a world where there is so much bitterness from ex-players towards their current counterparts, and journalists who seem content to only forward their own agenda, Benaud was a comforting and mild mannered commentator on the game who never lost his overriding passion for simply being at a ground and enjoying the sport, with nothing else attached.

I took that for granted as a youngster listening to him. I found him too politically positive, never would he say a bad word about umpires decisions or players, but growing a little older you come to appreciate the warmth, the proper enthusiasm, the knowledge. He was a guy that was living his dream everyday, and no doubt worked hard for it and was enjoying his due comeback.

If Benaud taught us anything, it was never to be bitter, to love the game for what it is.... Ironically too, for someone endowed with such an old school decorum and manner, he was one of the few pure test match players who embraced positive changes in an encouraging manner. Home tests was never the same without him, Australian tests will never be the same without him. A distinctively voice, distinctive looking guy who cannot, and has not, been replaced.

Great Ambassador to his sport, to his country, and to his professional vocation. Few people exhibited or commanded such respect, even if he didn't ask for it.

If only sport had more characters like this, who just enjoyed being there and playing fair. I never seen him as an Aussie, he was just a fellow cricket lover.

Rest up good Richie....