Richie Benaud — the tour that established him as one of the greats

Richie Benaud rarely talked about his exploits while regaling the world with his commentary. Yet, he had plenty of feats that remain rare and unmatched in the history of the game. Arunabha Sengupta looks back at the exceptional tour of South Africa in 1957-58 that established Benaud as one of the great all-rounders in the game. Self-effacing omnipresence His laced cricket with sophistication, with wisdom, with insights. The voice with the crisp Aussie accent was almost omnipresent, yet understated, astute, yet self-effacing, reverberating with keen observations while shunning garrulous decibel levels. Richie Benaud not only set the benchmark for broadcasting, but remained till his very last days as one of the only ones to stick to it. And perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects of his commentary was  his absolute eschewal of the first person pronoun. Seldom, very seldom, did he use 'I' and almost never to refer to his onfield achievements. If he did so once in a rare while, it would be with the same reticent, discreet understatement.  Read: Richie Benaud passes away at the age of 84 When Alec Stewart had everyone in splits with his chirping from behind the stumps, calling Michael Vaughan 'JC Laker' as the young Yorkshire batsman tried his hand at his spirited yet limited off-breaks, the television team splashed the legendary off-spinner's career statistics on the screen. Benaud was quick to remark that he remembered Laker's 19 wickets at Old Trafford, 1956. He had been one of the victims, he recalled. But he would never refer to Old Trafford, 1961, his moment of supreme triumph, while focusing on the day's play. Almost all commentators of today, young and old, find this skill way too hard to master. Read: Twitter reactions to Richie Benaud's death Yet, Benaud had a spectacular treasure-chest of deeds to dig into and recount if he had wanted to, with 2,201 runs and 248 wickets under his belt. But, he decided to strip the associations with self from his treasures of experience and focus only on the sparkle of erudition. From his commentary, one could perhaps sense great feats but could never hear of them — being the first man to get to a Test double of 2,000 run and 200 wickets and holding the world record for the highest number of wickets being just two of them. Read: Eight videos that highlight Richie Benaud's commentary career The gestation period Perhaps this ability to take himself lightly came from his experiences during the early years of struggle — when the potential remained for all to see, but his career did not soar to greatness from the beginning. In fact, for a long, long gestating period it did not even take off. He fumbled through the first few years while both he and the team management seemed unable to decide whether he was a batsman or a bowler. Read: Sachin Tendulkar pays tribute to Richie Benaud Indeed he made his First-class debut as a specialist batsman. And in his Test debut at Sydney against West Indies in 1951-52, he was chosen primarily for his batting. In his second Test match, against South Africa at Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), he was struck by a fierce square cut by John Waite while fielding at short gully. It resulted in a smashed gum and split upper lip. According to the doctors, the impact could have as easily broken his cheekbone or damaged his eye forever. Read: Five most memorable quotes by the 'Voice of Cricket' The Australian team in the early to mid-50s was overloaded with all-rounders. Keith Miller and Ray Lindwall were in the latter half of their careers, while Benaud and Alan Davidson were starting theirs. The balance was thus awkward and often tottering. There was a slump in the Australian performance and Benaud himself seldom set the ground on fire. Still considered a batsman who could bowl, he did achieve some success with both bat and ball in the Caribbean in 1955, hitting his first century in Tests — in just 78 minutes, third-fastest in history at that time. Yet, after six years of international cricket and two tours to England, towards the end of 1956, the bottom line was alarming. He had managed just 815 runs at 21.44 and captured 50 wickets at 34.44 in 24 Tests, without a single five-for. Luckily, the selectors persisted with him. Read: Cricket muted for once It was during the tour of India in 1956-57 that Benaud showed signs of maturing into a top class leg-spinner. He took seven for 72 in Madras, and followed it up with six for 52 and five for 53 in Calcutta. The Indians, including Polly Umrigar and Vijay Manjrekar, born and brought up on a steady diet of spinners, succumbed against the increasing thought Benaud seemed to be putting into his bowling. Yet, his career seemed to be full of eye-catching moments which never quite managed to linger in memory. Some were uncharitable enough to call him “The Poor Man's Keith Miller”. Read: Richie Benaud, cricket's ultimate all-rounder Practice and Prescription By this time Benaud had taken on a new job. His journalistic ambitions had made him persuade Lindsay Clinch, editor of the Sydney Sun, to take him on. Clinch had sent him on the police rounds, hitching him with the grizzled veteran Noel Bailey. The day started at 5:00 AM, and with time there was a midnight beat as well. Benaud found it juicing up his joie-de-vivre. Visiting scenes of accidents and robberies, using his cricketing fame to speak to witnesses, and calling the desk to dictate his stories with minutes to spare: he loved all that. Yet, he managed to work on his cricket. Especially the extremely difficult art of leg-spin. He remembered that during a journey from London to Bristol in 1953, Doug Ring had gripped an apple to show him how to bowl the sliding top-spinner. It had been an essential addition to his armoury on good wickets. During the 1956 visit to the Blighty, Benaud had cornered Bruce Dooland at the nets in Trent Bridge and picked up invaluable tips on the flipper. Dooland's short run to the wicket had also left a lasting impression and influence on his style. Read: 21 lesser known facts about the 'Voice of Cricket' But what stuck deepest in his mind was the advice of the great Bill O'Reilly. He had met the master at Scarborough and the daddy of all leg-spinners had told him that it was Benaud's penchant for trying for a wicket with every ball that was ruining his control. O'Reilly had been clear. The main purpose of bowling was to allow the batsman nothing to hit. Benaud now worked hard at this dimension of his game. He arrived daily at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) No. 2 earlier than any of his state teammates and bowled three continuous hours in one net. He bowled to everyone, from top order batsmen to tail-enders, eking out strategies for each. During the winter, he accompanied Davidson to SCG No 2, after work and on weekends, and they both trained for three hours a day. “It was bowling well when one was tired that counted,” recalls Davidson. Additionally, two tours of England had made Benaud's batting technique more compact. The back-lift was straighter, and even the hard hitting methods were backed by sound principles. And then there was another critical development. During his tour of New Zealand, Benaud came across pharmacist Ivan James in Timaru. The chemist noticed torn flesh on Benaud's first and third fingers, caused by hour after hour of bowling. James suggested a solution of calomine and boracic acid. After applying this for a few days, the fingers turned hard and leathery, and the skin did not peel off any more. For the rest of his career, Benaud carried the calomine boracic lotion with him. The following tour to South Africa in 1957-58 tour saw the making of Richie Benaud, the great all-rounder. No bowler was so well prepared The team was rather inexperienced, led by the young Ian Craig. Only Neil Harvey had been in the country before, and the Springbok press dubbed them as the weakest to tour the land. There was no Ray Lindwall, no Keith Miller, no Ian Johnson. Yet, they were a young and happy lot, and most of them supremely talented. While on the ground they played attractive cricket, and otherwise took time off to enjoy themselves. They spent their leisure time golfing, going off to the races. All but Benaud. He remained at the nets, spinning the ball hour after hour, and at the end of it, applying the calomine boracic lotion on his fingers. Ray Robison estimated that he had bowled a thousand balls at the nets before bowling in the match at Northern Rhodesia. Robinson's estimates were statistical, not literary hyperboles of the Cardusian flights of fancy. He wrote, “I have never seen a bowler prepare more thoroughly for a Test tour.” In the first Test at The Wanderers, the hosts piled 470 for 9 and Benaud walked in at 151 for 5, defeat looming over their heads, stacked with loads of humiliation. He scored 122, runs of thrill and temperance mixed in optimal proportions. Twenty boundaries streaked across the Johannesburg turf. The match was saved. Jim Burke was the bulwark of the batting in the second Test at Cape Town with a serene 189, and Benaud contributed a sparkling 33 in the total of 449. And then his bowling started to speak with plenty of eloquence and mystery. Four for 95 in the first innings forced the follow on, while five for 49 in the second clinched the Test before Lindsay Kline completed the rout with a hat-trick. In the third Test at Kingsmead, Australia were on their knees, having been bowled out for 163, finding themselves looking up the barrel as South Africa ended Day Two on 150 for 2. On the third day, the hosts tried to consolidate. But at one end Benaud kept rolling in, bowling with that nagging accuracy that had been instilled by O'Reilly. Only three wickets fell in the course of the entire day, but the runs toted up amounted to just 168. Jackie McGlew completed what was then the slowest South African century and by the time the hosts were all out for 384 halfway into the fourth day, there was not enough time for the home team to the visitors out. Benaud's figures read 50.7-13-114-5, and they were eight ball overs. The stage was Wanderers yet again for the fourth Test. Craig, struggling for form, sent Benaud up at No. 4 as Australia batted first. He played himself in against the fiery duo of Neil Adcock and Peter Heine, and then launched a spectacular onslaught. It ended in a splendid exact 100 in three hours before he skied a hook shot off Heine. When the hosts batted, Benaud ran through the tail to finish with four for 70 in the first innings, and then destroyed the top-order with five for 84 in the second to win the match and the series. The Wanderers feat stands out as one of the greatest and one of the curiously unsung all-round efforts in Test matches. When the action shifted to St George's Park for the final Test, Benaud was at it again. He came in at No. 5 this time, and scored 43 runs with accomplished methods. And as the hosts fought a losing battle for survival in the final innings, the two training partners ran through them, Benaud with 5 for 83 and Davidson 5 for 38. They would shoulder the Australian bowling for years to come. The so-called weakest Australian team to visit the land thus won the series 3-0. Benaud ended with a collection of 329 runs at 54.83 and 30 wickets at 21.93. It ranks with the best all-round performances in any Test series. And not only did Benaud excel in action. His charm spread itself between balls as well. He nodded in acknowledgment at good deliveries bowled to him. As he patrolled the boundary, he spoke incessantly to the spectators. “Poor Man's Keith Miller”? Well, at least the men in South Africa who had seen Miller from the tour of 1949-50 found plenty in common, in all-round brilliance as well as charisma. Richie Benaud was established as one of the great all-rounders of the game. And much more. (Arunabha Sengupta is a cricket historian and Chief Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He writes about the history and the romance of the game, punctuated often by opinions about modern day cricket, while his post-graduate degree in statistics peeps through in occasional analytical pieces. The author of three novels, he can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/senantix)