Richie Benaud not ready to retire

link

A new three-year deal was done last Monday over lunch at the lavish Otto restaurant overlooking Woolloomooloo Bay, when Channel Nine chief David Gyngell asked Benaud if he would like to bat on.

In typical Benaud fashion, he said he had never planned to retire despite the farewell tour planned for this summer. So, at 81, the captain of Channel Nine's cricket team is back before he ever went away. "I knew what I said. I knew I wouldn't be doing any live commentary after a certain time, then I'd always added that I wanted to continue doing cricket for Channel Nine,'' Benaud said.

Channel Nine's head of sport Steve Crawley paid Benaud the ultimate accolade. "At Nine, when we think about Richie Benaud, we don't simply think about a cricket commentator. He's never been just a cricket commentator. He's an icon of Australian television,'' Crawley said.

Heard about this on my way home from work this morning. It made my day

Good to hear, I love Richie's commentary, one of the finest voices to ever grace television. Then again, all the commentators for the cricket on channel 9 are superb in my opinion.

Good to hear, I love Richie's commentary, one of the finest voices to ever grace television. Then again, all the commentators for the cricket on channel 9 are superb in my opinion.

With the exception of Tony Greig, Mark Nicholas (thankfully they finally dumped him), Mark Taylor, Ian Chappell & Ian Healy

Hence why I slapped on the 'in my opinion' at the end, I don't have a problem with any of the commentators you just mentioned.

Slater is really good. They need to use him more

Tony Grieg and Ian Chappel are the worst two. The others I'm fairly impartial to. Richie and Bill are the best.

Tony - "When do you think you'd get most excited Bill?"
Bill - "When South Africa loses"

haha

"At Nine, when we think about Richie Benaud, we don't simply think about a cricket commentator. He's never been just a cricket commentator. He's an icon of Australian television,''

I'm one of the rare Australians that doesn't really care for cricket, but I would tend to agree. Got to give the man his due, his voice has become synonymous with cricket in Australia.