In cricket’s hyperenergetic new era, Benaud knew to play the pause

In this Friday, July 17, 2009 file photo former Australian cricketer Richie Benaud rings the bell on the pavillion balcony on the second day of the second cricket test match between England and Australia at Lord’s cricket ground in London. (Source: AP photo)

Our game is poorer today. For Richie Benaud wasn’t just a fine leg-spinner, a wonderful captain and an unparalleled broadcaster, he was one of cricket’s custodians. If cricket faced a storm, or if change loomed on the horizon, you wanted to know what Richie thought about it. You knew his answer would be measured and dignified. We’ve lost a pillar.

For my generation, Benaud the cricketer was a statistic, a photograph, an anecdote. You knew he had 248 wickets, then the most by an Australian, you knew he didn’t lose a series as a captain, you knew he had a major role to play in that series against the West Indies in 1960-61 that is now part of folklore You saw him, buttons undone, a skip down the ground after taking a wicket. You saw this handsome man in black and white photographs, narrowed eyes always seeming to look into the distance.

But Benaud, the broadcaster, ah, that was different! He was around us, he was our reality. He was revered. I would often pass the Channel 9 box in Australia and my eyes would follow him. He had that aura. He would smile as he passed, occasionally offer a word but you hesitated to have small talk with him. He signed my copy of his book “On Reflection” and when he added my name, without being requested for it, I thought it was an honour. I thought he knew me though I wasn’t sure he really did!

There wasn’t a broadcaster who listened to, and looked at, Richie and didn’t wish he could be like him. Richie had a style that was all his own. He was influenced by an era in broadcasting, grew to symbolise it and eventually became that era. It was an era of quiet reflection on a game, when the viewer would be nudged by a commentator. Gently. Richie’s commentary was like the quiet breeze in the country making its presence felt but only subtly. Yes, Richie’s was the era of subtlety, of understatement. It was an important part of his commandments.

And how beautifully he played the pause. Admittedly, it was a quality of his times but the pause is also a statement of comfort and of control. You pause for a moment when you know you own the next. And because Richie owned the next moment, and always had the line for it, the pause became a statement too. It was also a tribute to the game and an appreciation of the fact that sometimes the game needed its own sound track. The moment belonged to the game, to its actors, to its stars and Richie didn’t want to steal it. Only those in comfort and in control could let the moment be.

I often wonder how Richie would go today in a commentary box. Over the last few years, as he visibly slowed, the game and the broadcast veered dramatically away from his unhurried, dignified style. T20, with its frenetic pace and commercial clothes, invaded the game, three commentators became the norm and producers started relating to a new generation.

Richie’s was an era of signed letters, of not speaking till you were spoken to, of waiting patiently for a conversation to end before asking if another might begin. In the last few years, we’ve got whatsapp and twitter, everyone is always talking to each other, retweeting praise is not looked down upon and reactions, praise and filth, are in real time. Society doesn’t have time to reflect and pause and cricket, and its broadcast, has begun reflecting that. Only last week a producer told me that he’d seen two balls when nobody said anything and that it felt weird.

More talk
Today’s generation, and research is reflecting that, wants conversation and opinion. It wants characters. Danny Morrison, as removed from Richie as it is possible to be, is among the most popular commentators at the IPL. All over the world, commentators are encouraged to do more. You see that on Channel 9 (some might say it was Packer’s Channel 9 but it really was Richie’s Channel 9 wasn’t it?), you see it in India, you see it in New Zealand. You see it in the Big Bash and you see it in the IPL. Only in England, and Richie’s style was born in England remember, does that approach remain. And of the newer set of broadcasters only Michael Atherton and Ian Bishop really retain that frugality that was the essence of Richie.

Would Richie, in the new order, have been a bit like Rahul Dravid and Jacques Kallis in the first season of the IPL? Would he have played the broadcasting equivalent of a reverse sweep and a Dilscoop? Or would he, like with his stand on free-to-air cricket, have stayed away. I ask this because Richie was extremely forward looking and accepting of contemporary styles, he was a central figure in the Packer Revolution remember, and who knows he might have come up with some wicked one-liners.

In the tributes that flowed in after his passing, especially from those that knew him well, one thing stood out. While there were references to his cricket and his broadcasts, the focus was on his generosity, on the person he was. When you have achieved as much as Richie Benaud did, if people remember you first for the person you were, it means you lived well.

A pillar is gone but our game should be thankful to Richie Benaud for having lived in it.

Source:: Indian Express