Benaud's cricket commentary spoke for itself. Inimitably, it is tempting to add, but the fact is that it was imitated all the time and everywhere. It was imitation in its sincerest form, nearer to idolatry than flattery. Benaud once said he kept three precepts in mind while commentating: that a statement should not be posed as a question; that there were no teams called "we" or "they"; and that the value of the pause should never be underestimated. Would that some latter-day commentators adhere even to one of these! It made Benaud, above all, the master of the now lost art of the understatement. Journalist and former parliamentarian Ian Cover still recalls a moment in the West Indies in 1991 when Mark Waugh flat-batted Curtly Ambrose over point for six, and the several seconds of wordless astonishment that ensued, and then Benaud: "He's given that something".

But Benaud never was a sycophant. Of this, there was a recent reminder. In the lead-up to the Australia-New Zealand World Cup final, the media default was to revisit the infamous underarm incident of 1981. That night, Benaud was unsparing. "I think it was a disgraceful performance from a captain who got his sums wrong today," he said. "I think ... it was one of the worst things I have ever seen done on a cricket field."

Benaud the cricketer was as Benaud the commentator, a little apart from and above the rest. For an appreciation of his cricket, we must turn to that oldest form of technology, the written word. Benaud blossomed slowly, as leg-spinners did then, but always with a clear idea about how the game should be played. He took a poorly performing Australian side and made it successful again, and took a game that had fallen into stasis and made it vibrant again.

His two greatest exploits came in the space of nine months in 1960 and 1961. The first was to conspire with West Indian captain Frank Worrell to play enterprising cricket, come what may, in a series that began with the first tied Test in Brisbane and continued for five Tests in that epic key, thrilling big crowds and lifting the game out of doldrums. It is intriguing to remember that Benaud met Worrell at Sydney airport at the start of that summer, not as Australian captain, but in his capacity as a reporter for the Sydney Sun. The strands already were beginning to entwine.

His second mark was to go around the wicket at Old Trafford, then an unorthodox move, and take five wickets in a rush – including Peter May's, bowled around his legs – to lead Australia to victory from a losing position and so to safeguard the Ashes once more.