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The rich legend - BENAUD
The morning after his return from playing for Australia in India, Richie Benaud presented himself to the night news editor of the Sun newspaper in Sydney and asked for a job. The day's paper carried news of Benaud's 11 wickets in the third Test in Calcutta, won by Australia, but four years into a long and distinguished Test career, Benaud was thinking of the future. He wanted to be a journalist, a proper journalist, not just another former player putting his name to a ghosted column.

"Everyone wants to be a journalist" was the terse response of Lindsay Clinch,the editor. Benaud, though, was not to be deflected, so two days after leaving the field at Eden Gardens he was doing the police rounds as a night news reporter, learning part of the trade that has provided his livelihood for so long.

What marks out Benaud's commentary is not just his absolute economy of words, but his unerring eye for a story. He was thinking like a journalist when he became the first Australian Captain to allow pressmen into the dressing room at the end of a match. The invitation had one condition: no conversation within the sanctum was to be directly reported. The Australian Board were horrified and told their Captain so.

The tale tells much about Benaud's ambition and his tenacity, even more about his desire to do things properly. He wanted to be accepted as a journalist, so he needed to do the training. It was the same with television. At the end of the 1956 Ashes tour, he enrolled in a three-week television course run by the BBC. He was sent to shadow Peter O' Sullevan at Newbury's autumn meeting. "Follow me and don't say a word," O'Sullevan said, "and then we'll have a beer later and talk about it."

In time, Benaud's much mimicked accent became as much a part of a cricketing summer as O'Sullevan's mellow commentary on a Saturday afternoon. The importance of organization and preparation, Benaud reflects, were the skills he learnt those two days, as well as a love of the horses. A summer spent listening to the gentle rumbles of Henry Longhurst at The Open and Dan Maskell at Wimbledon furthered his education. Longhurst's a simple mantra - "don't speak unless you can add to the picture" - has never been more tested than during the past month of an Ashes Series Benaud regards as the best he has seen.

Take the final overs of the fourth Test at Trent Bridge and the growing possibility of an Australian victory. The audience of more than eight million could not have been in safer hands. There was no need for embellishment or flourish, as Benaud well knew. "All I had to say was the number of runs to win, that Australia had three wickets to take and that if England did win, Australia would have to win at The Oval to retain the Ashes," he says. I just kept reminding people of those facts because they were coming in second by second wanting to know what the situation was. The whole thing revolved around not saying anything, which suits me anyway.'

When Ashley Giles duly turned Shane Warne away for the winning runs, Benaud said: "Australia have turned in a fabulous performance, Warne and Lee have been simply magnificent, but millions of spectators here and all over the world have seen England go 2-1 up in the series." Then the final masterstroke: "Giles finish not out seven, Hoggard not out eight."

Do you know which achievement Benaud holds dearest in a broadcasting career that began at Old Trafford in 1963? "I taught myself to say 'Australia' or 'the Australians' Not once in 42 years have I used the word 'we'."

The final day of the fifth Test will mark Benaud's farewell to commentary in his second home, a matter of conscience as much as age, though his 75th birthday is only a month away. Perfect timing was always one of his gifts. He is, he says simply, a "free to air" man and with the controversial transfer of Test coverage to Sky next summer, Benaud has no terrestrial air time to fill. Test Match Special would benefit from his gravitas, though you cannot see a man as serious about his cricket. Waffling on about chocolate cakes and red buses. It will be a surprise if Benaud, as he devoutly wishes, sneaks off air without a fanfare. John Arlott was applauded all the way up the steps for his final stint of commentary. Benaud would love and hate such attention.
He would want the cricket to do the talking as it has so eloquently through this summer.

"We came up with a wooden cigarette box from the 1956 Pakistan tour and a plate with the signatures of the Indian Cricket Board etched into it," says. The caps and the blazers have gone. But the proceeds help finance a new swimming pool at Jugiong. On the walls of his house in Sydney, he has photographs of the 1961 Australia side and the two horses he once owned with his wife, Daphne. Rebel Thrust won twice at long odds long after the Benauds had given up backing him and later became an international dressage horse; Enthuse won six in a row at the country tracks in New South Wales.
These, you can be assured, were two of Benaud's less shrewd investments.
No more perfect finale could have been scripted with an Ashes series of breathtaking brilliance hanging in the balance and the whole nation poised to honour a new era of English cricket. "The only series I've watched that comes close was in 1981, with Botham being sacked as Captain, Mike Brearley coming back and the Old Trafford Test," he says. "But the players on both sides are better than in 1981".

Had he been behind the microphone and not playing that day, you can be sure Richie Benaud would have been the coolest man in the commentary box. "Australia win a thrilling series 2-1, Mackay not out 3, Martin not out 1". And if England bring home the Ashes at last, you can be guaranteed two things; first, that Benaud will be at the heart of the action and, secondly, that not for one moment will he miss a beat.

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