Top cricket commentator Richie Benaud has been revealed as the silver-tongued lothario who fathered a love child with Weakest Link host Anne Robinson, when their wink fest led to passions they could not control.
Benaud, who after years of delivering cricket balls from a side on position in the sunny climes of New South Wales developed a pronounced squint, which he subsequently used to good effect in his broadcasting career as a way of welcoming Channel 9 viewers to the evening test match highlights.
Robinson meanwhile has only just come out as a 'winker' in public as a way of signing off from her Watchdog and Weakest Link programmes and trying to portray herself as human after spending half an hour tearing quiz show contestants or holiday firm executives to pieces.
The pair are believed to have met during the Australians Ashes tour of 1968, Benaud's first Ashes series as commentator in England and while Robinson was at the height of her wild child days when a fledgling Fleet Street journalist, drinking a bottle of vodka for breakfast.
Robinson had been detailed to follow Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger as he attended the Lord's test, amid rumours that the art school dropout was about to be adopted as the official performance artiste of the England cricket team.
Benaud rescued Robinson from an acrid confrontation with an MCC official as she was barred from following Jagger into the male only bastion of the Long Room - with a surreptitious wink to the steward he whisked Robinson away for a candle-lit lunch where they winked their way to romance.
During a hectic summer of love, Robinson got herself transferred to cover the tour, and followed Benaud round the country. Their whirlwind romance produced some of the most creative cricket reporting ever seen, as instead of watching the tourists county matches in the provinces, the happy couple could not tear themselves away from their bed and breakfast retreats where they broke 3 beds during the course of the summer.
Speculation as to the identity of the lovechild produced from this unlikely union have centred round the soul singer Gabrielle, who is believed to have undergone hundreds of operations to open just one of her eyes as the muscles round her cornea she inherited from her parents were so big they just closed her eye.
However Gabrielle's African-American heritage seemed to cast doubt on this possibility until it was revealed that Robinson's father was actually a limbo dancer from Trinidad and that the skin pigment gene had merely skipped a generation.
On being told the news that he actually had produced a child from his '60's tryst with Robinson that had gone on to be a successful singer and chart-topping artiste, Benaud commented, "What a marvellous delivery that was!"
Full name: Richard Benaud
Born: 6th October 1930, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia
Batting: Right-hand batsman
Bowling: Leg-break and googly
Teams: Australia (Test: 1951/52-1963/64); New South Wales (Main FC: 1948/49-1963/64); All teams
Indian Cricket Cricketer of the Year 1956/57
South African Cricket Annual Cricketer of the Year 1958
Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1962