RIP, Richie Benaud

Richie Benaud and Channel 9 from the land Down Under (as Australia is known) bring back rare memories down the lane. Richie's typical Aussie accented punch lines "gid dye (good day) mite (mate) from MCG", "in the air but saif (safe)", what a keich (catch) " still refuses to escape my memory. It was so genuinely Australian, like its Kookaburra to Kangaroos.

My first exposure to live cricket telecast from Australia was on the early morning of 1st March of the year 1985. India was playing with the host, in a crucial match in the Benson & Hedges World Series involving all test playing nations of that time. With blurry eyes minutes after the start, I watched Indian bowlers storming into the Aussies batting up. Before they realized they were reduced to 17 for 4 (oops 4 for 17 as they call it there). Kapil Dev and Jackie (as medium pacer Roger Binny was called by his teammates for his Jackfruit shaped round bottom) were in demolition mode. Australia could never recover from the shaky start and was all out for 160 odd runs. India easily won the game, knocking the home team out from the tournament. Alan Border, then Captain of Australia blamed the defeat on their team getting tired due to playing way too much cricket. The Aussie press howled - if we don't play too much we won't lose too often. 

More than India's victory what stuck me was the excellent quality of coverage and the lucid voice of Richie Benaud (along with Tony Greig who died years ago). For the first time I saw the telecast from each ends of stumps, showing the front view of the batsman facing the ball. The excellent clarity of vision was conspicuous, even on Black and White Konark TV ( a popular local brand of that time). The replays were shown like flipping pages on a glossy magazine. It was magical, as well as titillating moment to the early teen in me to view the summer milieu from the land down under, beamed live to the conservative middle class living room in Bhubaneswar. 

So far, I had mostly seen on the Doordarshan (only TV channel available) the so called slow motion replay. After a boundary, six or wicket would come a banner on TV proudly proclaiming ACTION REPLAY like a trailer announcing the release of a movie. Then would come the hazy replay in slow motion. Often by the time the replay finished one more delivery would have finished. Like a breath of fresh air, the telecast and the voice of Richie was both mesmerizing and a welcome respite from past. It had its share of contribution in bringing the frog in me out of the well. Cricket telecast and Channel 9 have come a long way since, but you will be forever etched in my memory. RIP, Richie Benaud.