Richie Benaud dies at the age of 84

Richie Benaud, former Australian captain and iconic cricketer commentator, died in Sydney. He was 84. Benaud was fighting a protracted battle with skin cancer and had also the after-effects of a serious car accident near his home in late 2013.

Benaud was arguably the most important of the cricketing voices in modern cricket. Benaud, who was skipper of the Australian team in 28 of his 63 Tests, turned into a commentator after his playing day and became the most respected of the men behind the mike in cricket. Australia did not lose a single series under his leadership until his retirement in 1964. Benaud’s influential captaincy helped Australia restore the top spot in world cricket in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Benaud was the first cricketer to complete the double of 2,000 runs and 200 wickets in Test cricket. He bowled leg-spin and was an aggressive batsman in the lower order.

Benaud became the iconic voice of the Channel Nine team from the first summer of Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket in 1977–78. He retired from international commentary after the 2005 Ashes series but remained a key figure in Channel Nine’s cricket coverage until the 2013 car accident sidelined him. In the dreaded accident, he crushed two vertebrae when his Sunbeam vintage sports car hit a brick wall near his home in Sydney.

 

Besides being a commentator, Benaud also wrote for newspapers and authored several books.

 

The social media was traumatized with this news. The shocking news has seen Twitter getting flooded with tweets full of grief. Here are some of the tweets: