Uncle Buck
Ghost Writer
- Jul 7, 2003
- 28,075
Marvellous news this one;
G'day Richie, back in the commentary box againAustralian leg-spin maestros will provide the soundtrack to the Ashes summer, as Richie Bernaud and Shane Warne step up to the mic
It is, of course, marvellous news. Richie Benaud is back, four years after his emotional farewell to the British commentary box – an on-air goodbye that was interrupted, but unruffled, by Glenn McGrath's dismissal of Kevin Pietersen on the final day of the 2005 Oval Ashes Test. Benaud, the master broadcaster, has been hired by Five to co-present its bumper Saturday highlights show, having previously appeared on Channel 4 and, for over 30 years, the BBC.
Yoda-like, cream-jacketed and always unobtrusively on the money, Benaud was for successive generations an incredibly more-ish five-day companion, the only TV cricket commentator ever to inspire a million "G'day Richie" signs, a dedicated comedy tribute act and an almost tearful level of devotion among his viewing public.
Still, it's hard not to feel the odd protective misgiving. Richie has always been incredibly old. This was just part of his thing. He already seemed incredibly old as far back as Headingly 1981, musing on Ian Botham hitting Dennis Lillee "into the confectionery stall. .. and back out again." He's now 78 and you fear for him, rightly or wrongly, because the world has moved on. The big thing about Richie's broadcasting wasn't so much what he said, as his silences. He gave us a master-class in the pregnant pause. No yodelled catchphrase, no elbow-jabbing banter, just the perfectly timed nudge, the wry one-liner and sparing, but eagerly hoarded, words of praise.
What place For Benaud's silences in the fast-cut Five highlights package? You suspect having him around is simply a credibility-short-cut: the definitive – albeit oddly crinkly and lop-sided – face of cricket front-loaded into its newbie Ashes coverage, like having the actual FA Cup on the sideboard in Football Focus. Also shoehorned into 45 ad-shortened minutes are Mark Nicholas (unctuous estate agent), Geoffrey Boycott (evangelical Yorkshireman), Ian Chappell (Australian provocateur) and Simon Hughes (sweating maniac in a van). Parachuting Richie into the middle of that lot sounds a bit like staging a Leonard Cohen acoustic set on MTV Base. Will he get a word in edgeways?
This time around the live coverage will be with Sky for the first time in an Ashes summer, a state of affairs much lamented by those who feel the contest should be available to everyone with a licence. On the plus side, Sky's high-end production has undoubtedly revolutionised the way cricket is shown on TV, with levels of manpower and graphic analysis usually reserved for a general election or a televised moon landing. This season Sky is offering us the Ashes in high definition – which, if you've got an expensive TV, means you get to see David Gower's fine, silvery-grey nose-hairs while he does his Benaud bit as studio anchor, sounding, as always, like man wandering around a picnic with a bottle of something nice in his hand looking for a corkscrew.
It seems mildly paradoxical that Benaud's initial retirement should have been billed as a protest at Sky hoovering up the rights to Test cricket. Mainly because Benaud would have been perfectly in his element expanding to fill the huge swathes of down-time and chinwaggery Sky's unhurried time-scale lends itself to. For the 2009 Ashes this privilege will be reserved for four former-England captains (Gower, Nasser Hussain, Ian Botham and Mike Atherton) plus David Lloyd (chirpy maverick), Michael Holding (gravel-voiced outsider) and Sky's ace card this summer, Shane Warne.
No one here is quite ready to assume the Benaud mantle. Atherton is the most engagingly cerebral. Hussain is insightful and passionate. Botham has one setting: harrumphing disbelief. It's Warne, also a champion Australian leg-spinner, who seems most closely associated with peak era Richie. Not as a broadcaster, but as a bowler – with Richie in the box, purring over his bluffs and blusters and zingers and zooters. Which really was about as marvellous as it gets for TV and cricket.
G'day Richie, back in the commentary box againAustralian leg-spin maestros will provide the soundtrack to the Ashes summer, as Richie Bernaud and Shane Warne step up to the mic
It is, of course, marvellous news. Richie Benaud is back, four years after his emotional farewell to the British commentary box – an on-air goodbye that was interrupted, but unruffled, by Glenn McGrath's dismissal of Kevin Pietersen on the final day of the 2005 Oval Ashes Test. Benaud, the master broadcaster, has been hired by Five to co-present its bumper Saturday highlights show, having previously appeared on Channel 4 and, for over 30 years, the BBC.
Yoda-like, cream-jacketed and always unobtrusively on the money, Benaud was for successive generations an incredibly more-ish five-day companion, the only TV cricket commentator ever to inspire a million "G'day Richie" signs, a dedicated comedy tribute act and an almost tearful level of devotion among his viewing public.
Still, it's hard not to feel the odd protective misgiving. Richie has always been incredibly old. This was just part of his thing. He already seemed incredibly old as far back as Headingly 1981, musing on Ian Botham hitting Dennis Lillee "into the confectionery stall. .. and back out again." He's now 78 and you fear for him, rightly or wrongly, because the world has moved on. The big thing about Richie's broadcasting wasn't so much what he said, as his silences. He gave us a master-class in the pregnant pause. No yodelled catchphrase, no elbow-jabbing banter, just the perfectly timed nudge, the wry one-liner and sparing, but eagerly hoarded, words of praise.
What place For Benaud's silences in the fast-cut Five highlights package? You suspect having him around is simply a credibility-short-cut: the definitive – albeit oddly crinkly and lop-sided – face of cricket front-loaded into its newbie Ashes coverage, like having the actual FA Cup on the sideboard in Football Focus. Also shoehorned into 45 ad-shortened minutes are Mark Nicholas (unctuous estate agent), Geoffrey Boycott (evangelical Yorkshireman), Ian Chappell (Australian provocateur) and Simon Hughes (sweating maniac in a van). Parachuting Richie into the middle of that lot sounds a bit like staging a Leonard Cohen acoustic set on MTV Base. Will he get a word in edgeways?
This time around the live coverage will be with Sky for the first time in an Ashes summer, a state of affairs much lamented by those who feel the contest should be available to everyone with a licence. On the plus side, Sky's high-end production has undoubtedly revolutionised the way cricket is shown on TV, with levels of manpower and graphic analysis usually reserved for a general election or a televised moon landing. This season Sky is offering us the Ashes in high definition – which, if you've got an expensive TV, means you get to see David Gower's fine, silvery-grey nose-hairs while he does his Benaud bit as studio anchor, sounding, as always, like man wandering around a picnic with a bottle of something nice in his hand looking for a corkscrew.
It seems mildly paradoxical that Benaud's initial retirement should have been billed as a protest at Sky hoovering up the rights to Test cricket. Mainly because Benaud would have been perfectly in his element expanding to fill the huge swathes of down-time and chinwaggery Sky's unhurried time-scale lends itself to. For the 2009 Ashes this privilege will be reserved for four former-England captains (Gower, Nasser Hussain, Ian Botham and Mike Atherton) plus David Lloyd (chirpy maverick), Michael Holding (gravel-voiced outsider) and Sky's ace card this summer, Shane Warne.
No one here is quite ready to assume the Benaud mantle. Atherton is the most engagingly cerebral. Hussain is insightful and passionate. Botham has one setting: harrumphing disbelief. It's Warne, also a champion Australian leg-spinner, who seems most closely associated with peak era Richie. Not as a broadcaster, but as a bowler – with Richie in the box, purring over his bluffs and blusters and zingers and zooters. Which really was about as marvellous as it gets for TV and cricket.
