The sun was shining (at least in my memory). The days were long. Lillee and Thommo were in their prime. And at 11.30am every day, I was glued to the TV, waiting for the ripple of applause from the assembled crowd which announced that the batsmen were making their way down the steps of the pavilion.
As the anchor stopped filling time, I settled back on the lounge and waited for the voice which was at the same time both exotic and reassuringly familiar to say the same two clipped words ‘Morning everyone’.
Test Cricket. Richie Benaud. All was well with the world.
On Friday morning, we were on a ferry passing underneath Sydney Harbour Bridge, when Fiona noticed the flag flying at half mast. A quick ‘google’ and we discovered that the unthinkable had happened. The man who had kept me company for my whole life – the voice which had provided a delightful continuity in a trans-hemisphere relocation – the man who in our house, like countless others in the UK and far more in Australia, was known simply as ‘Richie’, had died. I took a photo on my phone of the flag and sent it to my Dad with the simple words ‘Australia mourns Richie.’ There wasn’t really any more to be said.
To be honest, I was surprised at how moved I was by the passing of a man I had never met (although I did brush against his cream suit behind the Pavilion at Lord’s once!). His death brought back countless memories of days spent watching every ball in his company in our lounge room, as well as many hours laughing at imitations of the real thing. As the headline in the Sydney Morning Herald’s 12 page special tribute said, For nearly four decades, he was summer’.
And then there’s the fact that Richie was, it seems, a really nice guy.
As Australian Captain, he played the game the right way. As a commentator, he seldom criticized, unless what was happening on the pitch was undermining the game itself (for example, in the infamous Trevor Chappell ‘underarm’ incident). He allowed the game to do the talking, and fiercely resisted self-promotion (when asked in 1982 outside the SCG Commentary Box by a 12 year old boy if he had ever played for Australia, he simply replied ‘Yes I did’!)
As a man, by all accounts he was modest, consistent and upright. Rarely have the accolades that have flooded in in the wake of his death been so uniformly positive.
And that’s the problem.
On the one hand, I do want to thank God for the joy that Richie Benaud brought to me and countless others over many, many years, and for the example he has been to so many. I do want to thank God for the game of Cricket which, for me at least, is a glorious example of common grace!
But on the other hand, Richie’s passing confronts all of us with the stark reality of our mortality. Even national institutions die.
Richie’s death also underlines the reality that even the most moral, most upright, most admired of us can do little more than leave behind some who think well of us. And yes, that is part of the multifaceted common grace of God.
But the danger of common grace is that even those of us who should know better can slip into thinking that common grace is enough, rather than being spurred on to gaze at, and talk about, and praise the matchless grace which our God has shown us in the Lord Jesus Christ.
(Photo from the upper level of the Victor Trumper Stand, SCG by Johnlp).
