playing career was marked by the same down-to-earth common sense. Younger generations may admire him as the consummate performer behind the microphone, but he was a player of the highest quality and one of the finest cricket captains of all time. His record of four losses in 27 Tests and no losing series as Australian captain is impressive enough, but mere statistics do not do justice to his tenure. He communicated with his players, the media (Richie was the first to invite journalists into the dressing-room for a chat after a day’s play) and, probably most importantly, cricket fans and general public. He and the West Indies captain Frank Worrell got together before the 1960–61 series in Australia and declared their intention to entertain. They kept their word, and the public responded. The first match ended with the run-out that ensured cricket’s first tied Test – more than 90,000 people, then a world record, were at the MCG for the second day of the fifth Test.
Richie was also an instinctive sports psychologist, although there were no such fancy titles in those days. One of my favourite stories concerned his handling of Ken ‘Slasher’ Mackay at Dacca in Pakistan. Richie’s instructions were clear: on a unforgiving pitch, the ball must be bowled at the stumps, not outside them. After 40-odd overs in the oppressive heat, Mackay let one slip wide and it was thumped to the boundary. Richie walked over to the bowler. ‘What’s the matter. Getting tired?’ he asked.
A couple of overs later Richie was back, congratulating Mackay for hitting the stumps: ‘That’s where I wanted it.’
Richie, as cricketer, captain and commentator, is the finished article – polished, poised and precise. But, as is the case with most people who make what they do seem easy, no cricketer worked harder at his craft. He spent more time in the nets than I spent out of them. Nor was he an overnight success. Eventually, his leg-spin brought him 248 test wickets, but his only highlight on his debut tour to England in 1953 came in the final match at Scarborough, when he hit a world-record 11 sixes.
His elevation to the captaincy in 1958 was a surprise. Ian Craig went down with hepatitis and everyone expected Neil Harvey to get the job. England had enjoyed three successive Ashes series before sailing for Australia in 1958–59 with one of the most talented teams including May, Graveney, Cowdrey, Laker, Lock, Statham, Evans, Bailey, Dexter and Trueman to leave these shores. Australia won 4–0.
His most famous Ashes moment as captain came at Old Trafford where, five years earlier, he had twice been one of Laker’s 19 victims. England, having come from 1–0 down, seemed certain to go 2–1 up when going into the final Test at the Oval. England were well on their way at 150 for 1, chasing 256 in four hours, for victory. For most captains, instincts would have told them to slow down the action and waste time. Not Richie; if Australia were going down, they were going down fighting. He went on the attack. After removing Dexter for 76, he bowled May round his legs for a duck in a spell of 5 for 12 in 25 deliveries. Australia won by 51 runs and regained the Ashes. For once, I’m forced to agree with Ray Illingworth. In his book, Captaincy, this was his verdict on Richie: ‘The nearest thing we are ever going to get to a perfect cricket captain. He matches boyish enthusiasm with ceaseless concentration, calculated attack and non-stop encouragement.’
Richie lost credibility and friends in some circles with his involvement in Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket. But he deserves a pat on the back, as far as I’m concerned. Richie put his money were his mouth was; cricket must evolve and go forward. Without Packer and the support of influential cricket folk like Richie, I’m not sure we’d be enjoying the resurgence in Test cricket that we are today. Richie puts some of the credit down to Shane Warne and his impact on the game over the 1990s. Always generous, without handing out accolades lightly, Richie is happy to acknowledge Warnie as ‘the greatest leg-spinner of all time’.
I’m rarely intimidated, but I must admit to feeling slightly daunted when I slipped into a commentary chair next to the great man for the first time. I needn’t have worried. Richie has never felt threatened by young upstarts and is always willing to help. He’s exactly the same on the golf course, where I’ve been able to gain first-hand experience of his competitive instincts. People forget that ‘Botham’s Ashes’ summer of 1981 didn’t start that well … defeat at Trent Bridge, a pair at Lord’s, followed by my resignation as captain. I could sense that there was general satisfaction that I was on that downslope at last. Not from Richie, who interviewed me several times that summer. He knew what I was going through and was very supportive. Always the innovator, Richie also has an extremely dry, if not arid, sense of humour. During Mike Atherton’s 1994–95 tour of Australia, I heard, ‘Gatting at fine leg’ – then a pause before Richie added, ‘that’s a contradiction in terms.’ Typical Richie. Understated. He taught me that less is more and silence is golden when the viewer can see the action. When he speaks, Richie Benaud is always worth listening to, because he has something to say. That’s why he has remained at the top of his game for almost half a century.
‘Arrived from the planet Loony to become the best and fairest of all umpires. Great bloke, completely bonkers.’
I rarely have occasion to quote myself, but the words I penned about Dickie in my autobiography stand the test of time. Dickie’s mannerisms, quirkiness and great good humour are no longer seen on the cricket field following his retirement in 1996, and world cricket is undoubtedly the poorer for that.
But if the ICC are serious about setting up a training scheme for the next generation of Test umpires, I wouldn’t hesitate in getting the old nutcase out of mothballs.
For it was not just his ability to get decisions right far more often than not, but his feel for the way the game should be played that marked Dickie out as the outstanding ‘cheat’ of my time.
As a reader of lbws and catches behind and off bat-and-pad, Dickie was without equal. Towards the end of his career he gained the reputation of being a ‘not-outer’, a batsman’s umpire, but, even from a bowler’s perspective, I felt that was a trifle unfair. His great strength as a decision-maker was his instinct for what was out and what wasn’t. Dickie never left a batsman dangling. If the finger wasn’t raised by the time you looked up to discover your fate, you knew you were safe. But although he was quick on the draw, his first sight was almost always correct. And I can honestly say that in all my years in Test cricket I never, ever got a bad decision from him. And if Dickie did get one wrong, any hurt the batsman may have suffered disappeared the moment he saw the look on Dickie’s face. ‘This,’ said the expression just as the digit began its journey skyward, ‘is going to hurt me more than it will you.’
Dickie had a way of behaving with players that let you know who was boss, but didn’t ram it down your throat. Some critics derided him for being a showman, claiming that Dickie liked the television cameras a little too much. But his final, farewell appearance in June 1996, fittingly at Lord’s for the second Test between England and India, proved the point that he never allowed the spotlight at the centre of the stage to blind him to the job in hand. The standing ovation that greeted Dickie on the first morning was not only overwhelming, it was unprecedented. Few players had received so rapturous a welcome in their final match; an umpire, never. Yet after milking the moment for all he was worth and filling his handkerchief with tears, by the time the fifth ball of the match was bowled by Javagal Srinath at Mike Atherton, Dickie could see well enough to give a rock-solid lbw decision in the bowler’s favour.
Right from his first year as a Test umpire back in 1973, strange things happened whenever Dickie was around. In the second half of that summer, the West Indies played a three-Test series and in two of the matches Dickie was confronted by situations that no one could have forecast in their wildest dreams. First, in the second Test
