64: Richie Benaud

63 matches. 248 wickets @ 27.03. Strike rate: 77.05. 16x 5wi.

13 years. 2x good. 2x excellent. 2x outstanding.

The discussion

Take your time Michael, this one’s important. You’re talking about the voice of cricket here. The doyen of commentators. Don’t muck this up.

Here goes . . .

I’m going to start with Richie’s playing days, because I feel like they’re not as well documented for the average cricket fan, and there’s a lot to like as we deep-dive into Benaud’s career.

Let’s watch a bit of Benaud in action and break down his style. As a leg-spinner, this is a fascinating study of a near-perfect technique. Three things are immediately obvious.

First — at the crease Benaud is perfectly side on, and in a great position to drive over the front leg and generate a lot of energy into the delivery (we’ll get to why this is so important in a thrice). There’s a little bounce in the approach and, even though it’s a short run-up, Benaud gets into a great position at delivery. There’s a little hop in there to get his body position nice and high, he’s not too stretched out so he’s not falling away, and the speed to approach the crease gives him plenty of energy to work with in his delivery action.

Second — the arm height and wrist position are excellent, near perfect. Some wrist-spinners get their arm too high; it increases the capacity to bowl the top-spinner and wrong-un, but makes it harder to impart energy on the ball, thus making it more difficult to extract significant turn. To give you a modern example, Warne’s arm was at a similar height to Benaud’s, whereas Anil Kumble’s was much higher. Kumble had a better wrong-un, but Warne had the massive turning leg-break. Lower still was Stuart MacGill, a modern-day Clarrie Grimmett, who extracted more turn on his leg-break than just about anyone, at the expense of a little bounce. Benaud’s position has just the right combination of arm height to extract bounce, and his great wrist position enables him to effectively bowl a leg-break, top-spinner, or even the wrong-un with a subtle change at delivery. A slightly lower wrist position also allows for a little more flight — note in the footage linked above how Benaud was able to release the ball up and above the eyeline of the batter. Asking a batter to track the ball over their eyeline, and back down onto the surface is a key to the art of deception. It’s no coincidence that a number of the wickets in that highlights package involve the batter, not to the pitch of the ball, either skying a catch or running past it and being stumped.

Third — and this is key, is the drive over the front leg and the follow-through. Spin bowling is about imparting energy on the ball. Finger-spinners rotate over their front leg, with a twisting motion at delivery, twisting over the ball of the big toe on their front foot. Wrist-spinners go through the crease, much more akin to a fast bowler. The energy can be generated from the approach, then from leg drive, through the core, then the shoulder, and finally through the wrist and delivered primarily with the third finger onto the ball. Great spinners get energy from all the parts of their body, and you need all parts working in concert, and in the same direction (i.e. towards the batter) in order to achieve the desired result. Benaud, having set himself up with his side-on position, drives over his front leg (again, like a fast bowler), through the crease and down the wicket. The sign of an excellent leg drive is a multi-step follow-through down the wicket towards the batter, rather than a dead stop, or off to the side of the crease.

Ten out of ten for Benaud, a near flawless leg-break action. Don’t believe me? Here’s the man himself with some very similar advice for a young Lancashire leg-spinner at lunch of a Test match in England.

Let’s add a fourth element here — it happens after the delivery, but it’s no less important to Benaud’s success. Once delivered, Benaud puts his body in position to field off his own bowling. The follow-through, although down the wicket, has Benaud with head up, eyes level and square to the batter, expecting to receive a return catch. Again, it is no surprise that the footage features several caught-and-bowleds (the first is a beauty) and highlights that Benaud was an athletic field and a superb catch.[1]  

Moving away from a deep-dive into one of my favourite leg-spinning actions, and into Benaud’s performances. In both of Benaud’s autobiographies, he describes his own career in a typically understated fashion. He gave me the impression that he didn’t think much of his own performance during his early years. Over the course of his first three or four years at Test level his returns were modest, but selectors persisted with a young Benaud, who showed a lot of promise, but hadn’t yet converted that into big results with either bat or ball. His tour of England in 1953 saw him dropped twice, before strong performances in tour matches seemed to give the world a glimpse of the dashing batter and aggressive bowler who was slowly gaining in confidence. Benaud built on that in 1954/55 against the West Indies with a debut century in just 78 minutes and a 97 off just 113 balls against England at Lords in 1956, in what was otherwise a quiet series. The attacking spirit that later defined Benaud’s captaincy was clearly there. He believed in playing attractive, entertaining cricket, even if he had yet to realise his true potential as a bowler.

In fact, Benaud said on numerous occasions over the course of his media career that despite making his international debut in 1952 at the age of 21, he didn’t really understand his own game at that time. It wasn’t until some great advice from mentor Bill O’Reilly in 1953, that Benaud started on the track to greatness, and his eventual position as the Australian record holder for most Test wickets (248).

Even an international player like Benaud took four years to perfect his stock ball. It is no surprise that Benaud’s career took off in 1957, almost four years exactly after Tiger’s advice.[2]

Again I digress, but this graph illustrates nicely the transition of Benaud’s career from being a good cricketer (1952–56) to one of the great spinners of all-time, particularly from 1957–60. 1957/58 was a breakout season for the all-rounder, and was the beginning of a golden period where Benaud dominated first South Africa, then England, Pakistan and India. He averaged under 22 in each of those series (including Pakistan away and India away) and Australia won every one. From that point, Australia never lost a series until Benaud retired.

Benaud was also no slouch with the bat either. A batting average of 24.45 belies a much better player, Benaud has three Test centuries and a +/- of -2.58 as an all-rounder may seem low when you note the ‘minus’, but that simply highlights how few all-rounders finish their career with a higher batting average than bowling average.

As a captain, Benaud was bold. He inherited an Australian side that wasn’t great (although it did have some great players), but his legacy was that he transformed Australia into an attacking and entertaining team. He regularly went on record as captain to state that his side would play ‘attractive cricket’, by looking to score quickly and trying to entertain the paying customer with the bat and in the field. Under Benaud, Australia scored at a run rate above 2.5 runs per over more than 50 per cent of the time (a reasonable clip for that era). Case in point, Benaud won seven from his first ten Tests as captain, with three draws, despite only winning the toss once. From 28 matches as captain Benaud won 12, lost 4, with 11 draws and of course the famous tied Test in 1960. The 3-1 ratio of wins to losses trails only Steve Waugh (Aus), Mike Brearley (Eng) and Sir Viv Richards (WI) as Test captains. His loss percentage (14.28%) trails only Mike Smith (Eng)[3] and Brearley. Richie Benaud played winning cricket.

Here comes the difficult part, and that’s Richie’s legacy after he retired from international cricket. I say difficult because Richie Benaud will mean something different to everyone. In 1956, while still in the infancy of his international playing career, Benaud partook in a media training course in England. This set him up for his first commentary stint in 1960 (again while still playing), which led to a career spanning more than 50 years and almost 500 Tests as a commentator. Benaud’s words and his voice have touched almost every cricket fan in the world since 1965. Few commentators possessed the poise, and the knack of when to use silence to great effect, like Benaud did. Contrary to most modern commentators, he rarely (if ever) recalled his playing days, preferring to let the match in progress do the talking. He was forthright without being unconstructive in his critique of players, lavish in his praise when it was due, and never seemed to let his personal biases cloud his view as a commentator.[4] Everyone has their favourite Richie moment, from the clichés (marvellous, 222-2, first, cherry, and gone) to the absolutely sublime. My personal favourite? The poise and pause during the Gatting Ball. Many commentators would have exploded into hyperbole. Richie, a slight pause, and then the perfect words for the moment. I’m almost certain Gatting “still doesn’t know”.

The verdict

I think I know that Richie Benaud has brought more joy to cricket fans than just about any other broadcaster. Everyone has their famous Richie moment. Some of our memories are from commentary, others are from the satire of The 12th Man, others still might be the experience of dressing as one of ‘The Ritchies’ at a Test venue in Australia. Whatever your chosen memory of Benaud, I’m certain it brings you joy to recall it. I have several, one of which regularly does the rounds among friends whenever the 1992 World Cup is discussed.

As a player, Benaud ushered in a culture of entertaining and attacking cricket, paving the way for a change in the way the game is played that can be directly traced through World Series Cricket[5], and then down through the years into the modern ‘entertainment first’ franchise tournaments that we see today. You can argue that all started with Benaud and Sir Frank Worrell back in 1960–61 during that famous series between Australia and the West Indies.

As a commentator, Benaud permeated our living rooms across the globe for well over fifty years. His dry wit, sense of timing and ability to sum up a passage of play with the perfect analogy is almost unparalleled, either before or since. Names like Alan MacGilvray, John Arlott, Tony Cozier, Jim Maxwell and Harsha Bhogle[6] come to mind when I think about great commentators that I have listened to in my lifetime. In the modern-day, Mike Atherton, Ian Smith and Michael Holding are all fine commentators, too. But Benaud stands above them all.

Some might have Benaud higher on this list based on his legacy in the game. Captaincy isn’t everything (Benaud himself described it as being 90% luck and 10% skill) and plenty of cricketers have made an excellent contribution with their individual skills. Benaud’s record as a player is good, but not as great as some other players on this list. However, what his statistical resume lacks, he more than makes up for it in leadership and legacy.

In the ultimate game of ‘would you rather’, if I could only hear one voice describing cricket to me for the rest of my days, it would be Richie’s. No cricketer or commentator has given me more joy than Richie Benaud, and (for me at least) he did it all from behind the microphone.

In one word

Joy

Notes

[1] He was an excellent fielder behind the wicket, especially in the gully, not shown in these highlights.

[2] Here’s another great lesson for the modern wrist-spinner. One might be tempted (captains being the fickle decision makers that they are when it comes to leg-spinners) to try to ‘place’ the ball down the other end, just to try to bowl enough balls in the right area to stay at the bowling crease. Another temptation is to bowl six different deliveries an over searching for a wicket. While maximum variation might be a necessity in modern international white-ball cricket, reject this notion as a club cricketer or a junior player. Instead, follow Tiger O’Reilly’s and Benaud’s advice. Develop your stock delivery so that you can bowl ‘a fiercely spun leg-break’ and ‘bowl it 90 per cent of the time’. In other words, spin the ball hard, and work on your stock ball until it becomes so ingrained that you can bowl it with the control and accuracy you need.

[3] 25 Tests as captain. Won 5. Lost 3. Drawn 17. That’s a lot of drawn Tests.

[4] Case in point: Benaud’s scathing assessment of the 1981 underarm incident. His withering critique of the Chappell brothers after the match perfectly summed up the lowest point in Australian cricket history to that time.

[5] Don’t forget, Benaud played an important role in the establishment of World Series Cricket as a key adviser to Kerry Packer.

[6] I know Harsha is not everyone’s cup of tea. Few could pluck the perfect analogy for the moment like Bhogle, except perhaps his Indian counterpart Navjot Singh Sidhu.

Bio

Record

Source: ESPN CricInfo