John Cobb (Calare, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Richie Benaud passed away just over a month ago. He obviously knew what was happening for quite a long time. As with his whole life, he did it with dignity and poise and just embraced what was happening—in a way that we would all hope we could do ourselves. I think modern Australia sees Richie Benaud as this guy who wore the white, the cream, the bone and was the face of cricket. Be it test cricket or one-day cricket, he was the person everyone expected to see on the television screen. When he opened his mouth, his knowledge and his ability to talk about the game certainly sold us on him ahead of every other commentator. I think that is how modern Australia really see him: as a commentator and somebody with extraordinary knowledge.

It is a well-known fact that there have not been many Australian captains who, when wondering what to do, did not seek his advice. It was very well known that they would even go up the box and ask, 'What do you think?' Even apart from they way he presented himself and cricket, I think this man was the best Australian captain I ever saw in my lifetime—and I will come back to that in a minute. For somebody of my age, Richie Benaud and the guys he played with were, along with tennis players such as Lew Hoad and the like, my heroes as I was growing up, but very few people ever retain the respect and the status that Richie Benaud had.

Everyone always says that to be captain of the Australian cricket team is the most important job in Australia. I do not say it is the most difficult—maybe being Prime Minister is more difficult—but the captaincy of the Australian team is the pinnacle of sport. As time goes on, it gets more difficult in that you have to deal with the politics and all that as well these days. If Richie had been the captain of the Australian team today, though, I think he would have handled the media; they would not have handled him.

I have just been talking for a minute about how modern Australia sees Richie. For somebody who is a little older, there is a heck of a lot more than that involved. One of the moments in my life I will never forget—I was very young, it was 1960 and I presume it was December—was the first test in Brisbane against the West Indies. Richie Benaud was the captain of the Australian team. We were out the back of our place, way out in western New South Wales in the Western Division and there were two guys crutching sheep for us in a woolshed. The radio got turned on and it was quite amazing: the test was tied. Just recently—only a few weeks before he died—Richie was asked about his greatest moment in cricket, or the greatest thing he was involved in, and he said it was that tied test. That was the pinnacle of cricket and there are a lot reasons why it was. Young as I was, that is a moment that has been etched in my mind forever. We did not have TV, we just heard it on the ABC with AG 'Johnny' Moyes, a famous cricket commentator of the day. I think that series was the start of modern cricket.

There is a very well-known photograph from the end of that series, which Australian won—Australia only just won and probably were lucky to do so, because they played one of the most talented teams we have ever seen—of Sir Frank Worrell, the West Indies captain, and Richie Benaud shaking hands over the Frank Worrrell Trophy. Johnny Moyes said that this was two people who had conspired together to make cricket exciting again. That is why I say that Richie Benaud and Sir Frank Worrell—Sir Frank Worrell unfortunately died comparatively young, but Richie lived on to see modern cricket—led, I believe, the growth of aggression and excitement in cricket long before one-day cricket ever happened. I was very fortunate to be young enough to see guys like that as my heroes. They were not around as long as modern players. The two great all-rounders that we had in our team, Richie Benaud and Alan Davidson, were phenomenal cricketers. They both retired from international cricket in about 1964—not really because they wanted to but because they had to make a living. Guys like that would have had far bigger records, because they both retired at the height of their powers. Thy would have had records far more comparable to modern cricketers if they had not had to go and make a living.

I am not going to say any more except this: Richie Benaud and the guys that he led were the start of what we have today, which, I am very happy to say, is still part of Australian lore. It certainly transcends politics. A guy like Richie Benaud never, ever took a side on anything political. He just talked about cricket and what it needs, and I thank him for my memories and Australia's.

See this speech in context