Remembering Richie
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REMEMBERING RICHIE For two years I had the privilege (unrealised at the time!) of working for Richie Benaud (1970-72) as an “Account Executive” – a sort of ‘gopher’ for Richie in his days before World Series Cricket, when he and wife Daph were building a PR firm with clients such as IMG – Mark McCormack’s stable of sports stars that began with Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus – and others such as the Rothmans Sport Foundation. Before I bore you with that, here’s my story of first meeting him . It’s November 1963 and as a yokel from the then country town of just get bat on ball. Thank Gosford, I’m playing in my first season in Sydney Grade for lowly heavens, for the slow Paddington, and go out to bat with the score around 3 for 100, to face Cumberland wicket, I think up to the biggest name in world cricket – Richie Benaud. - now long gone underneath Parramatta Stadium. Richie is gearing for his last test series in Australia against South Africa, before deciding he’d had enough of an empty wallet. While I lift my eyes in relief and TV cricket was in full swing, the players earned a pittance and like his there’s Richie looking at me team-mates Alan Davidson and Neil Harvey, retired in what now is a out of the corner of his eye. cricketer’s prime, so they had a chance of making a career in business. Slowly his fingers lick that All three played grade cricket every weekend for two more years – protruding lower lip as if to you can imagine the ‘marvellous’ effect that had on the competition. say: “Bit lucky then young feller – see how you like the next one.” In he comes to bowl, and The next one is higher and drifts in towards me and suddenly dips it’s the action I remembered and spins across me. from TV, but coming I’ve played forward – too scared to use my feet yet, and miss straight at me, a graceful, it comprehensively. Head thrown back, Richie’s arms go up, in flowing, sliding, sideways characteristic style to just head-height – nothing is ever-exaggerated run-up, with the left about Richie. shoulder pointing almost down the pitch. Then comes The umpire calls over, and I take a deep breath, and after getting off a leap into delivery position, the mark at the other end, I’m able to watch as Richie works on the and as he pivots on his front other batsman – and when next I face him I’m better-armed. foot over comes the arm and I hear the snap of his wrist – yes he’s The previous two seasons, I played in Newcastle Grade with the 45 leg-break bowler, as we called them in our day, as he’d get turn and year old Colin McCool, Australia’s leg-spinner after WW2 and a very bounce – not just a leg-spinner who’d simply spin across sideways. good one. And I faced Australian leggie Bob Holland in those years Richie’s first ball to me looks like a leggie, and I go back expecting too. So young whipper-snapper I might have been, but leg-spinners I’d it to turn. It doesn’t spin but goes straight on. I adjust hurriedly and had some experience against. In my favour was firstly the very slow pitch. I played back as much as And that wasn’t the only lasting impression Richie made on me that possible and if I guessed wrong, I had time to get it right. game. But Richie looked different too to my memory of him watching every On winning the toss for his top-four, Cumberland team, Richie SCG test for the previous ten years. My image was of him rising as he had no hesitation in sending us in. At 5pm the game changed delivered with his shoulder high and the ball fizzing. In real time his dramatically. Our slow struggle over 4 hours to 180 was in complete shoulder looked much lower, and fizzing on this slow wicket, it was not. contrast to the gay abandon Cumberland batted with, in racking up half our score in the last hour on the same slow pitch. Next week Later I remembered how brought more of the same, and an hour into the day Richie had he missed captaining his declared on passing our score and we are batting again. Cumberland’s 1961 team at the Lord’s Test bowlers go full throttle for nigh on an hour but our top three hold – fibrositis of the shoulder them out and then seem to find form for the first time of the season I think they called it – and and runs begin to flow. Only later do we realise that behind a bravado ever since there was the of attacking bowling and fielding, are cleverly-disguised full-tosses odd story of Richie battling and long hops that enable our batsmen to pierce a close-set field and with shoulder soreness. race off for boundaries – one opener had his highest score for two He’d been a besotted bowler seasons. With 90 minutes of play left, we find ourselves 180 ahead – at practice, one of the first who’d have clocked up the so-called should we declare, comes the thought – we might just get our first champion’s number of 10,000 hours I reckon. Several times afterwards win of the season (and last season too!)? Such situations were then in the nets and at exhibitions such as the Sydney Easter show, I’d see common and such declarations seemed to go “a third/a third/a third” him put down a marker on the pitch, go to the bowling crease, tie a – ie. The chasing team would win a third of the time, the fielding side handkerchief over his eyes, turn and go back to his bowling mark and a third, and draw the other third. And if you refused to declare, you then run up blindfolded and bowl a ball that would land spot on the were considered a negative team – a no-no in those days. handkerchief. So we declare and 20 minutes before stumps the game is over – and And this day he bowled with that same sort of accuracy for over we have been comprehensively thrashed. Conned is perhaps a better after over, and somehow I held him out. A couple of hours later, he’d word. winkled out the rest of our line-up and I was not out on 50 – but can’t remember a single scoring shot – I must have, I was just concentrating Years on I recounted this story to members of Richie’s celebrated so hard on working put what delivery was coming, whether to play 1961 Ashes tour of England, where Richie announced on arrival at forward or back, adjusting for any drift, drop and spin – it felt like a Southampton (the last team to travel by boat) that he intended to chess match, Richie presenting a move which I’d have to counter. play bright cricket and was aiming to win every single game against the counties – on previous tours these had been played boringly It was my first score of note in Sydney Grade, and maybe, just maybe as practice matches. And most of them were won too, and in Richie remembered it 7 years later when he was looking for an off- similar fashion, I am told – Richie setting up all sorts of unheard of sider, and my name came up. And never once did he say a word. His declarations and trusting and encouraging his team to go for the win. expressions said it all. He’d sort of nod if I picked one and played it Occasionally they came unstuck but most they won and in the process well, or sigh and throw his head if I had a narrow escape. Otherwise delighted the English cricket public and helped make Richie the he’d just wheel around and stride off to his mark in his unique, stylish, darling of the English media more so than any previous captain. sliding way. He’d turn around, give a quick, Warne-like stare, and in he’d come again. Again memorable was the next and only other time I played against him – the 1965-66 Grade cricket final at the SCG – Richie’s last competitive match. At the end of the 1st Saturday, Richie’s Cumberland team was 2 for 20 a tailender. No sireee, he matched Dougie in every way that day and chasing my St George team’s 250 - memorable for Richie’s long spells despite having four (past & future) state bowlers, we were made to bowling at our two test players Billy Watson and Brian Booth. Not look 2nd rate. With 40 to get, Warren Saunders turned in desperation out at day’s end for Cumberland was the new superstar Doug Walters to Brian Booth’s offies, and incomprehensively Richie on 98 glanced who that summer aged 19, had hit centuries in his 1st two tests – and him into leg-slip’s hands. Next over, with the new ball taken, Dougie Richie. The next Saturday (no Sunday cricket then) was a drizzly, cold, on 99 played his slashing square cut only to get a thick edge, and windy day, and we came off for showers no less than 6 times. Dougie Brian Booth took one of the best catches of his career wide to his left was magnificent and together they put on 200.