"My mantra is that if you can add anything to what people can see on the screen, then do. If not, shut up.” So said Richie Benaud. He’s gone, aged 84, and to say he will be missed is the prince of all understatement.

He was one of the handful of great cricket commentators along with John Arlott and “Bumble” Lloyd.

Arlott, with that warm Hampshire purr in his voice, was a poet who could give you the complete cricket scene in an exquisite pressure of phrase: “Consider Lillee in the field. He toils mightily, but he does not spin.” Bumble manages to be utterly expert and a hilarious stand-up comic at the same time. Benaud was brisk, crisp, laconic and wise. He never used a dozen words where two would do: “That’s out!”

But I’m forgetting. Richie wasn’t only a great commentator, he could play the game a bit as well. So well that he was the first Aussie to take 200 Test wickets and score 2000 runs.

I saw him on two occasions. First in 1956 against T.N. Pearce’s XI at the Scarborough festival when he smashed 135, including eleven sixes. That was fun. The next time was deadly earnest.

In the fourth Test at Old Trafford in 1961, England were cruising to victory with Ted Dexter and Peter May in their pomp. Benaud went round the wicket with his leg breaks and googlies, and England were skittled. This Aussie victory owed a lot to Benaud’s bowling, but even more to his captaincy.

He was an inspired tactician but at that Manchester Test his tactics nearly didn’t come off. He was bowling to another master tactician, Brian Close.

Wickets were tumbling when Close came in and immediately flailed about as if trying to hit every ball for six. He was out and later received severe criticism for not being more circumspect. But Benaud himself said, “I was scared stiff. If he’d hit me for a couple more boundaries, I’d have had to take myself off; and England would have won.”

Like Mike Brearley, Benaud knew that cricket is a game played with brain rather more than brawn.

About captaincy, Richie said, “It’s 90% luck and 10% skill. But don’t try it without that 10%.”

He was the first Test captain to invite the media into the dressing room at stumps to reflect on the day’s play. He was almost finished before he ever got started.

Very early in his career, he was hit by a bouncer – so hard that it left a crater in his forehead. It was a damn near thing. Twenty-four X-rays, major surgery and the requirement to lie absolutely motionless for a fortnight.

As a commentator, he never missed the smallest detail of what was happening on the field. For example, in a Test match in 1994, Mike Atherton seemed to be behaving suspiciously while fielding.

Was he tampering with the ball by rubbing dirt into it? A heinous crime if so. He claimed he kept the dirt in his pocket to dry his hands on and was given the benefit of the doubt. But as soon as Benaud noticed Atherton’s slightest movement, he said at once “Hello, hello – what’s going on?”

He had moral fibre. He commentated for more than forty years with the BBC, but when cricket moved to Sky, Benaud refused to follow, saying, “Cricket should be free to air.” That laconic wit was delightful: “Glen McGrath out for two – just 98 runs short of his century.”

Richie Benaud, out for 84. Pavilioned in splendour.