Gidean Haigh on ESPNcricinfo on Richie Benaud

If we don't remember him as an elite legspinner, a thinking captain or one of cricket's true professionals, it's because of the phenomenal work he has done as a commentator, writer and observer.           

If Arlott was the voice of cricket, Benaud was the face © Getty Images

"Did you ever play cricket for Australia, Mr Benaud?" In his On Reflection, Richie Benaud recalls being asked this humbling question by a "fair-haired, angelic little lad of about 12", one of a group of six autograph seekers who accosted him at the SCG "one December evening in 1982".
"Now what do you do?" Benaud writes. "Cry or laugh? I did neither but merely said yes, I had played up to 1963, which was going to be well before he was born. 'Oh,' he said. 'That's great. I thought you were just a television commentator on cricket.'" Autograph in hand, the boy "scampered away with a 'thank you' thrown over his shoulder".

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