In the mid to late 1970s, the sound of summer for many young teens was Sherbert, Skyhooks, and a little later The Angels and Australian Crawl.
But for those with a sporting bent, there was only one sound of summer and it went a little like this: “Welcome back to the MCG for this World Series Cup game between Australia and the West Indies…” Or any variation on the theme.
Richie Benaud was the Walter Cronkite of TV broadcasting in Australia, and if you know who Cronkite was you might be a little confused, for Cronkite was not a sports broadcaster at all. But there was no more distinctive TV voice in the USA for a generation.
The same could be said for Richie. Always “Richie,” never “Benaud,” because he was like an old friend welcoming back the long days of summer with that distinctive lilt and wonderful pause. Richie was the master of saying everything with a long moment’s silence.
I remember a World Series Cricket day/night game late in the breakaway competition’s first season, Australia versus the West Indies at VFL Park. The Windies needed five runs to win off the last two balls with one wicket in hand. It was an absolute thriller that had the excitable Bill Lawry tying himself in verbal knots in the commentary box. Wayne Daniel smashed the second-last ball of the innings for six in the kind of finish that couldn’t be scripted. Richie’s response as the ball sailed away into the Melbourne night, “He’s hit that many a mile…”
In an era of excitable sporting commentators, Richie was the antithesis, a calm fluid delivery that suggested the moment he was seeing was already enough – he needn’t add to it. This made those rare occasions when Richie did react seem all the more special. The first time I heard Richie give us the verbal equivalent of jumping out of his seat and punching the air was during the 1981 Boxing Day Test.
Day 2, and Dennis Lillee took the wicket of Larry Gomes to become cricket’s all time leading wicket-taker. It is one of the most iconic moments in Australian cricket and I can’t help thinking that Richie’s reaction has etched it in my memory banks.
Another summer school holiday driving to the beach I switched on the radio and Richie was once again setting the scene, describing the weather at the MCG for a one day game between Australia and Pakistan. I was a little confused because Richie was a TV commentator and I had not heard him on the radio. In that dead-pan voice, he intoned, “There were clouds gathered this morning and it seemed like the start of play would be delayed, but f*** me if they didn’t blow away completely…”
I almost drove off the road with shock. I’d heard the 12th Man for the first time.
In a way, Billy Birmingham enhanced Richie’s already-legendary reputation, by saying things we all knew Richie would never say, but doing it in such a convincing mimic that in short order, everyone was impersonating Richie via Billy, even my cricket-neutral mother. She still says to me, “Rubbish Binny was left out by the selectors but no-one collected him…” And none of that would have existed without Richie.
About a decade ago, I was buying a morning loaf of bread at the local Coogee bakery. Richie walked into the store and was offered one of the basket samples. He accepted a piece of the bread, chewed thoughtfully, nodded at the shop assistant and said, “Pretty good bread, that.”
It was all I could do to not drop to a knee and declare, “We are unworthy.” A fleeting brush with the summer voice of my generation but one I’ll never forget.
Thank you Richie.
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