As Benaud was well aware of being third choice for want of another, the sequel showed the personal fibre of the man in addition to unexpected qualities of leadership. As one glimpse of a sunrise tells much, one ball told me Australia had fluked on the captain needed. As Alan Davidson bowled it in Brisbane an edged catch was awaited by a U-field arc of slips and leg slips, except for O'Neill at cover and Kline at mid-on. Pitching on a grassy strip the first ball rose to hit left-hander Peter Richardson on the shoulder. Before a second ball Benaud brought mid-on a few yards from the batsman's hip. A field change before a ball touched a bat! We were witnessing the emergence of the No. 1 opportunist of all national cricket leaders. He never missed a chance to seize the initiative, trying to make things happen. The toecaps of his boots were always seeking a chance to get a foot in the door - either foot in any door his size 9.5 boot could force ajar. Richie had the faculty of making snap decisions that did not snap back. Luck soon aided him when Bailey was not out in England's first innings. That caused May to send Bailey in earlier in the second dig, where for hours his encamping presence put better batsmen off their game. Superb fielding was making runs scarce anyhow. After a dreary stretch of 19 runs off 21 overs Ron Roberts asked the scorer, "When did Bailey come in, George?". "Half past two." George Duckworth replied. "Yes, but which day?" said Roberts.
Benaud's bumbling over keenness was lapped up by his players. He ran to congratulate bowlers and catchers for each wicket but a little noticed action in Melbourne revealed that his appreciation went far beyond highlights. After a false start for a dangerous run irrepressible Godfrey Evans slipped headlong and tried to poke his bat back. From backward point Colin McDonald's throw above the bails enabled Grout to run the venturer out. As the crowd noisily watched Evans depart and Lock came in Benaud ran from short leg to give an average fielder a passing pat for an orthodox throw.
Breaches of unemotional he-man tradition caused many older onlookers to say the next thing would be kissing and they found fervid embraces repugnant, as if bordering on homosexuality. From a practical standpoint I thought the only issue was whether rapture inspired bowlers and fieldsmen to do better. Don't tell me it didn't.
Ten years between Bradman's last Test and Benaud's 4-0 triumph against England had brought drastic changes. To his bowlers eye one ball's behaviour from the pitch told Richie as much as a blacktracker learns from a footprint. In a sense Richie was not so much a manager announcing decisions or an overseer issuing directions as a charge-hand, at the bench with his artisans, the most hard working of them all. Harvey said Richie cultivated team morale better than any other captain he played with.
If he could contrive it, he liked closing an innings to get a few overs at the other side at the fag-end of a day or before an interval. Besides asking to see any charts scorers made of batsman's scoring strokes, he began a system of having a card of the bowlers' progress overs and runs at each interval.
Detonated by Cowdrey's bat, a blinding catch that knocked Benaud over backwards in the gully was the greatest ever seen at Lords by Ian Peebles. Richie's 65 catches in 63 Tests included others almost as dramatic. In one series fielding brought almost two-thirds of England's wickets while the Englishmen caught, stumped or ran out fewer than half as many. He based his tactics on the knowledge that the more good balls a side bowled in a day the more wickets could fall.
His blue eyes gave nothing away. The surest pointer to any arousal was a drier tone of voice, uttered over a bottom lip like Maurice Chevalier's or Mel Torme's. Benaud would shoot straight from the hip. If events demanded firm correction, Richie's lower lip juttered further out, like a tramcar's step. You could measure how well correctives were working by the way it retracted until a dragonfly could no longer have alighted on it. In the team room he did not watch constantly but looked intently at anything he sensed could influence future tactics. He steered clear of politics, religion (his was cricket) and card games. He never smoked until he accepted cigarettes while sitting out official speeches on a successful tour of India when he was 29.
Top level politics crossed his track in 1959 when US President Eisenhower on a visit to Pakistan was taken along to Karachi National Stadium to see a strange game everyone was talking about. Inside, surrounded by simmering thousands of Asians, he saw a cluster of eleven Australians calmly vying with the elect of the Islamic nation at cricket. Seeing that the Pakistanis had arrayed Eisenhower in a blazer, the Australian captain said, "I see you've joined the opposition, sir." The president recovered neutrality by accepting Richie's cap. Benaud was the first visiting captain to win a series in Pakistan, and the last Australian.
At Madras admirers ran on to the field with a gift, an Indian-woven shawl. The crowd relished his pretence to run up to bowl with the shawl draped across his shoulders until an umpire intervened.
It was no fluke that English ex-captain Arthur Gilligan classed the 1960-61 West Indies series as the best cricket he ever saw. On Test eve Bradman told the Australians they could make it one of the game's greatest years by trying to play good cricket all the time, "even to the point where the result becomes immaterial." Neither side shrank from defeat in the delerious excitement that resulted in the first tied Test. Benaud and Frank Worrell each had the zealous loyalty - almost idolatry - of their players and handled public relations in ways that assured favourable imaged for their teams. Though the Australians could not rival the spectacular strokes of the West Indians, Benaud outdid Worrell in enterprising field settings. He would not place outfielders to deter Sobers, Kanhai and others from going for their shots. Instead, he showed faith in his own bowlers ability to get the stroke players out. Apply that all through West Indies innings and no wonder 90,800 packed into the Melbourne ground to set a world record crowd for one day of a cricket match.
In 1961 a surgeon disposed of Benaud's tonsils before his captaincy in England. Aboard the liner guidlines framed from lessons from previous visits even included a goodwill gesture - willingness to try walking out without waiting for umpires to rule on fine snicks to wicketkeepers. He gave no direction, leaving it to each individual (his countryman generally have little faith in walking).
An obstinate tendon injury made his shoulder the most discussed since the Venus de Milo's. For weeks the pain made him shave left-handed. The trouble failed to stop his developing exceptional team spirit, though his habits differed widely from Woodfull's... Late hours relaxing over a few beers, rising late to finish breakfast just in time to get to the ground. I recall inexplicable hunches that seemed to slip beyond a rational borderline into the occult. The most uncanny occurred when Mike Smith came in at Egbaston, his home ground. Benaud brought Lawry into short gully, a new position for MacKay's medium-pace bowling. The Queenslander's second ball somehow flipped from Smith's pad to his bat then straight into Lawry's hands.
When Dexter's pace-setting bat was putting England on top in the decisive Manchester Test Benaud scorned to become defensive but took risks counter-attacking. Overnight he had consulted Lindwall, who agreed bowling round-the-wicket to spin from bootmarks would be worth trying but warned that every inaccurate ball missing the patch was likely to be banged to the boundary. A near-lost Test was rescued when Richie's leg breaks from the rough patch captured five for 13 in 25 balls. In one of England's worst evenings since Philip Sassoon ordered a Union Jack lowered because its colours clashed with the sunset.
Though three of five tosses were lost, the 1961 team won the Wills prize for fastest scoring in each Test. His batsmen averaged nine runs more than the Englishmen per 100 balls. Crowds saw the Australians bowl almost 112 balls per hour, 14 an hour more than England's bowlers. Benaud was unrivalled in his consideration for touring players not needed in Tests. He saved them from pining as spare parts by making sure they were given opportunities against counties. His team was the first to have eight bowlers take 50 or more wickets each.
While playing to win, the spectators best friend was alert to inject excitement into the game as well. At times when this looked like misfiring but didn't, players feelings were summarised by English fast bowler Harold Rhodes: "If you put your head in a bucket of slops, Benordy, you'd come up with a mouthful of diamonds." In public relations to benefit the game Benaud was so far ahead of his predecessors that raceglasses would have been needed to see who was at the head of the others. After the 1961 tour the Queen awarded him an OBE. First to bring a fully trained journalist's mind to bear on public relations, he understood newspapers and their reporters' needs. By forestalling misunderstandings he created goodwill worth thousands of pounds. The beneficence resulted in his team's go-ahead cricked being recognised and acclaimed by critics who would rather have seen England win. No team left England after a closely fought series amid such ringing praise as this side. These achievements, put on the scales with his skippership successes, led me to rank him first among all the captains I have ever known. Reflecting over twenty years, noted umpire Charles Elliot said Richie was the best overseas captain.
Benaud was the first to lead Australia in 28 Tests. Against England, Pakistan, India, West Indies and South Africa his teams won 12, tied one, lost four and 11 were unfinished. He was the first Australian captain to put the other side in three times. Each time his judgement was borne out - against England in Melbourne, Pakistan in Dacca and the West Indies in Melbourne. He was an even worse tosser than Bradman, who lost 11 spins. Richie had to return to the room 17 times to tell his team the opposing skipper had the choice.
It could be said he never lost a series but that was not his angle of approach. Though his bottom lip often showed he was irked by others often using defensive field placing and bowling against his team, I recall only three instances of his forsaking his attacking line. When imaginative moves or injury to a leading bowler landed him in trouble his reverse action looked all the more drastic.
Benaud is the only Australian captain whom the selectors sent into the field at high risk of losing a no-balled bowler and being left to fight out a Test, in effect one man short. At Brisbane umpire Colin Egar called fast left-hander Ian Meckiff four times in his only over against South Africa. Angry barrackers raged at Benaud for not switching the left-hander to the other end. To reporters' questions Benaud said:
"I bowled Meckiff for hundreds of overs before umpires who approved his delivery and I accepted their decision. Now that an umpire does not accept Meckiff's delivery I accept that decision, too. I will not bowl him again."
After a telephoned threat to umpire Egar two detectives were at the ground. Benaud was sipping tea in the lunch-room when O'Neill told him masseur Jock Anderson was walking around muttering threats. Through a doorway a figure appeared, hat pulled down near sunglasses. The intruder displayed a Sporting Globe showing headlines asking why Benaud had not bowled Meckiff from the other end. "Why didn't you?" rasped the semi-disguised Jock. Lifting the paper, he pointed a revolver at Benaud and fired. It was only a cap gun but at that moment, Richie said, his past life flashed before him.
Meckiff said that Richie, "who is behind every player", had done the right thing on the day that ended his cricket career.
