Wisden Cricket Monthly editor-at-large @SternWords
Richie Benaud lived just long enough to see the start of Ben Stokes’ England career but sadly not long enough to witness his shapeshifting Test captaincy. The great man would have approved. Long before Benaud, who died in 2015, became the voice of summer on two continents, he was an intuitive, bold captain of Australia who helped rouse Test cricket from the late-1950s torpor into which it had sunk. Mike Brearley, who knows a thing or two about imaginative leadership, described him as “the spectators’ best friend… alert to inject excitement into the game”, while still playing to win.
After England’s frenetic run chase at Trent Bridge to seal the series against New Zealand last June, Stokes echoed that philosophy when he said his players should “try and think that we’re in the entertainment business rather than the sporting business”.