His handsome features were rightly complemented by his deep voice. Add to this his engaging style and you get the package perfect for a long career in the commentary box. Since his retirement from international cricket in 1964, Richie Benaud has been playing his second innings as a cricket commentator for British and Australian television.  In the 47th year of taking to the microphone, this former Australian skipper is still going great guns. Now the iconic commentator has decided to give the Box a miss. "I'll be doing Australian cricket next year, 2010, but I don't do any television at all anywhere else now and when I finish next year, I'll be doing other things," Benaud, conveyed his plan to Macquarie Radio.

He has been a cricket commentator for such a long time that sometimes people forget about his equally illustrious international cricket career. He took over the charge of Australian cricket team in the year 1958. It was the game plan of this leg-spinning all-rounder that earned the Australian team two Ashes series triumphs against England. Under his leadership, Australia never lost a test series. On personal front, he amassed impressive cricket score for himself; he was the first cricketer to strike double achievements of 2,000 runs and 200 wickets. He scored more than 10,000 runs and taken over 500 wickets and there are only nine players from the Australian squad to have achieved that.

After bidding good bye to international cricket, he had chosen the life of a Journo. However, he did not start his second innings as a cricket correspondent. He worked for some time as a Crime Correspondent with a Sydney Newspaper. In various stages of his career, he remained a columnist with the News of the World tabloid, Britain's biggest-selling Sunday newspaper, worked as advisor to ‘Nine Network Chief Kerry Packer’ and worked more than 40 years on the title.

The English honored this world famous commentator known for his dry humor with a standing ovation in 2005, as the 42 years of Benaud's commentary in the country closed to end. His own people did not remain far behind; latter in the same year, a poll was conducted by the Wisden Cricketer and Cricinfo and Benaud was voted Australia's Most Popular Commentator. With Benaud quitting the television, the commentary box will not be same again without the man in beige jacket.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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