The words trip eloquently off those famous pursed lips: 'Yes, I would say England have their best chance in years of beating Australia next summer.'
Few broadcasters have brought as much wide-ranging perspective and authority to their opinions as has Richie Benaud. He has played in or worked at more than 500 Test matches. It is a unique achievement, one unlikely to be matched and which The Royal Television Society recognised at their recent awards dinner.
So, on the vexed question of England's cricket revival, Benaud is worth listening to.
'Australians want England to be good,' he says, pausing for effect before adding, 'without winning.'
'When I started in first-class cricket in 1948, it was 10 years before I played in an Australian team that won a series in England. England are moaning about 15 years now. That may be true but, in those days, when we didn't play as much, 10 years was a hell of a long time. I need to see England strong because everyone wants better competition.'
It might not please some of his more excitable compatriots in the commentary box, but Benaud thinks next year's Ashes series here will not be another walkover for the world champions.
'It depends entirely on the bowling. The England guys can bat. But you need to bear in mind also [Shane] Warne is still good - he bowled the most wonderful spell on the second morning of the second Sri Lanka Test. [Glenn] McGrath we know has got problems with his ankle, after a poor diagnosis, and has struggled. However, between them they've got more than 900 wickets, so you simply can't lose them, even if the back-up bowlers are good triers.
'It depends, then, on England's bowlers. If [Steve] Harmison keeps on making improvement, and there's [Andrew] Flintoff and [Matthew] Hoggard. They need one more quick, they need [Simon] Jones not to break down. I think it can be a terrific series. They couldn't get away without a quality spinner in any other country but England. It depends a bit on the pitches. Sometimes a quick bowler who can use reverse swing is more important than a spinner. I think England have got a real good chance, their best chance in years, because their bowling line-up is coming on.'
Benaud does not give many interviews - understandable for a man who, since he mapped out a strategy for his media career 48 years ago, has marketed his opinions with a keen sense of their worth. And he is, after all, a working journalist.
Another reason he is reluctant lately to submit himself to the process is that, at 73, he can see 'The Question' coming. He is not so much irritable as weary on the subject of his retirement, although his poise and good manners never desert him.
The answer as to when he might take his leave of us (because it is unimaginable he will be pushed) is as clipped, considered and direct as any he gives to colleagues in the box: 'No idea. Everyone asks me that.'
Some have cause to regret doing so. Natural curiosity, not to mention the reasonable urge for a scoop, inspired an Australian journalist to fly a kite too many when it was revealed Benaud's contract with Channel Nine was to expire at the end of next season.
'He wrote a story that I was finishing in 2005,' Benaud recalls. 'That threw Channel Nine into a bit of a panic. So they came to me and said, "Can we come to an agreement, if you're happy?" 'I said, "I'm very happy in the job. Ring up the guy who's written that and tell them he's gotten it wrong".'
Channel Nine asked Benaud to stay and he agreed. 'It was just a matter of changing the dates on the contract and adding on a bit to the figures. So I'll be staying there.'
Benaud's deal with Channel 4 also comes up for renewal when their contract with the England and Wales Cricket Board expires at the end of 2005. 'Don't know about here [he often omits the perpendicular pronoun, possibly in an effort to establish distance] because the rights are coming up and I keep hearing it could be Channel 4, BBC, ITV ... So I've got absolutely no idea.'
Negotiations start soon. Channel 4 are still interested, as are the BBC, although they are short of cash because of their renewed love affair with football, and ITV must be the sort of outsider Benaud is sometimes tempted to back at the racetrack. Sky, meanwhile, are happy to share with Channel 4, a disjointed relationship that apparently works well.
As for Channel 4, they are desperate to keep their silver jewel. I get the impression they are petrified of someone poaching Benaud. 'He's still got it, hasn't he?' an insider asks rhetorically and redundantly.
Nobody in the history of the game has so perfectly combined the playing and the watching of cricket. He played his first Test match in 1952, retired 53 Tests later in 1964 with a then-record 246 wickets and, along the way, as well as captaining his country with calm authority, he slipped almost unnoticed into the BBC commentary box, on radio first in 1960, three years later on television. So effortlessly has he shuttled back and forth between the hemispheres since that he has not endured a winter in 42 years.
As a result of his excellence with bat, ball and microphone, wherever Benaud moves in cricket, he creates awe among young and old. It is respect bordering on the religious. If cricket has a Pope, his name is Richie.
There is genuine affection for him too, as if he belongs to all of us. In a way, he does, much as W G Grace, Ranji, Bradman or Sobers are forever the universal property of the game.
Was the pre-eminent observer of cricket a good watcher, I wondered? Absolutely not. He went on a cruise to Antigua last winter and, unusually for him, watched the game from the stands.
'Daphne and I spent every second day at the ground. It is years since I've actually sat at the ground to watch. I have difficulty relaxing.'
Relaxing usually involves 'a couple glasses of wine with Daph' at the end of play. It is then, at home in Sydney, or a hotel on tour, or staying with friends, or at their small apartment in the south of France, that Richie and his wife of 37 years will open a favourite bottle, listen to music or chat about cricket. Maybe even discuss a contract to be renegotiated.
'Very, very rare where you say, "Jeez that was an ordinary day." There's always some young player you can look at. He mightn't have made many runs, but I can say to Daph, "He's going to be good." This guy Harmison, for instance. I said to Daph, "I've seen one today, this guy Harmison." And she said, "He didn't do much." And I said, "He will. He's rough as guts at the moment but then...".'
'Rough as guts' is an Australian expression, one Benaud might not use on air but that describes his knockabout roots perfectly, whatever the impression of him as austere gent.
He probably had a similar conversation with Daphne about Andrew Strauss, whom he admires as 'a good, well-organised player'. Cricket is central to their existence. They are partners in every sense of the word. 'We've been married since 1967,' he says. 'We started Benaud and Associates. And it's been that way ever since.'
That decision followed his downgrading at the [now-defunct] Sydney Sun after a strike in 1967. He had been a working journalist there since he returned from the tour of England in 1956, starting on late-night police rounds to learn the trade and ultimately becoming one of the most respected sports columnists in the country.
But, when management told him he would be reclassified an A-grade rather than the top-level Super-A, even while retaining his salary, Benaud wasn't having it. 'It's a matter of principle,' he told them before working out his notice and embarking on the most invigorating, and financially lucrative, part of his post-playing career.
It is easy for those who know him only as the consummate announcer and purveyor of sardonic quips to forget how good a player he was ... and how he very nearly died before his first-class career had properly started.
He was 18 and playing for the NSW second XI against Victoria in Melbourne when struck by a bouncer that left a small crater in his head. He survived the operation and played no further cricket that season. Doctors thought he might never play again. Benaud thought otherwise.
'Was a bit lucky that the first ball I got next year - in a grade match with the State selectors watching - was a bouncer from Russ Hill. Hooked it off my eyebrows for four. It was like getting back on a horse.'
Benaud pretty much stayed on that horse without further interruption for the rest of his playing days. My memories of him are of a young, deeply tanned leg-spinner floating rhythmically to the bowling crease with the perfect action, collar up, shirt unbuttoned to near the navel and ripping down a mix of fizzing balls, the most potent among them the flipper, whose invention he has been credited with. It was the fore-runner of many mystery balls to come.
A key crossover year for Benaud was 1956, at the end of a tough Ashes tour. The rest of the team couldn't get out of the country quickly enough and went off to holiday on the continent. Benaud stayed behind and did a three-week broadcasting course with the BBC.
He trailed around Newbury watching Peter O'Sullevan. 'Didn't interrupt him at all, just watched what he did. He was the most meticulous preparer I've ever seen. Other people prepare well. I do. But he was the best.'
He listened, also, to Henry Longhurst and Dan Maskell, patrician figures of television sports broadcasting whose mellow tones you can almost hear in Benaud's own measured delivery. What they taught him, though, was not diction or cadence but, as Benaud describes it, 'the benefits of only adding to the picture'. Nobody in our time has done it better.
If there is one person who gets to Benaud, it is the Australian satirist Billy Birmingham, whose latest 12th Man CD is entitled The Final Dig . It is, by some accounts, a hilarious send-up of the Channel Nine 'comm box', where the likes of Tony Greig, Bill Lawry, Simon O'Donnell and others plot against each other to take over from Benaud.
'They've sold very well, I hear,' he observes.
'The most disappointing thing is, I'd never met Billy and his press agent in England made him jump at me from upstairs at the Oval two years ago. He was publicising a CD, so I knew he was going to be around. When he jumped out from a partition and said, "I'm Billy Birmingham," I said, "G'day, I know who you are," and walked into the commentary box.'
Birmingham took it as a snub. Benaud probably meant it as one. He was making the point that he thought Birmingham was cashing in on his name. He objected also to the comedian's swearing on his CDs. 'And I don't like the play on the names of the Asian players,' he adds.
As for a successor, O'Donnell echoed the thoughts of the other supposed plotters when he said recently: 'He is enjoying his role and hopefully it gives him longevity, maybe more so than many people thought. If that keeps Richie involved in cricket for another two, five, seven, 10 years, that's good for cricket, and it's definitely good for broadcasting.'
Certainly he's never been happier watching the game he loves. The past 12 months, he says, have provided the best cricket he can remember. Benaud oozes contentment borne of experience.
'As long as I'm happy in my right mind then I'm enjoying doing it. If I ever stop enjoying it ... But I get something out of every day. Go home and broach a glass of something with Daph and there's always something to talk about.'
Marvellous.
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