FIRST, the good news. One of the most respected Australian cricket commentators thinks that England have a good chance of retaining the Ashes this winter. Now the bad news. Richie Benaud is taking the credit for encouraging Shane Warne to play one more series in England, in 2009.

Benaud may have said his last “Morning everyone” on British television, but his task of lifting England fans out of despondency is not over. “I hold exactly the same position that I held 18 months ago, before the last series,” he said. “I said that if England had a fast-bowling attack that was fit and bowling well, they would win the Ashes.

“They all thought I’d lost my marbles. People in Australia said, ‘Poor old bloke, he’s 74 and obviously past it.’ But I’d seen more of the England team than anyone outside the team itself. I’d seen them build up a great side, and it is still great.”

But what about the mounting injury list? Has he not read the doom and gloom about Simon Jones’s knee, Stephen Harmison’s back, Matthew Hoggard’s hand and Andrew Flintoff’s ankle? “It’s only July,” he said. “The first Test is a long way away. You could have 15 fit bowlers by then — or someone else could get injured. There’s no need to be down about it. But the big question is Simon Jones. He troubled every Australia batsman last summer. It will be more serious if he can’t make the Ashes.”

So it has come to this: an Australian telling the English not to get disheartened. But Benaud is one of us really, a valuable part of English summers for 42 years until he decided to say goodbye last year.

“If you’re going to go out, the best way to do it is with the best Test series there has ever been,” he said. He made the decision to step down, he emphasised, before the ECB gave BSkyB the rights to broadcast England’s home Test matches. But then he suddenly admitted: “I’d have kept going with Channel 4 if they’d got the rights.”

It stems from a long belief that cricket should be watched by as many people as possible and Benaud will continue to commentate for Channel 9, the free-to-air broadcaster in Australia, for a further three years.

Another Channel 4 refugee, Mark Nicholas, is now a popular sidekick in Australia and has taken over the start-of-play introduction that Benaud made his own. “It’s a very good decision,” Benaud said. “I might fall off the twig tomorrow.”

He may be 75 — and looking more like Yoda, the Star Wars sage, every day — but his life force is strong. He will be in Britain until the end of September, watching cricket, attending functions, working for his sports consultancy business and promoting the paperback edition of his latest book, My Spin on Cricket, a selection of sketches, opinions and miscellany on all aspects of the game, from technology to match- fixing.

In the book, he asserts that the past three years have been the greatest period of cricket he has seen. Few have seen more Test matches than Benaud, who played 63 times for Australia, captaining them in 28 Tests, and has commentated summer and winter since 1963.

Benaud’s broadcasting experience began 50 years ago, when he used a spare three weeks at the end of the Ashes series in England to go on a BBC training course. And 1956 was notable, too, for Jim Laker’s magnificent bowling at Old Trafford, where he took 19 Australia wickets in the match.

“It was the most extraordinary performance,” Benaud said, and it inadvertently shaped his career. He was a 25-year-old leg spinner who had taken 47 Test wickets, but he felt that something had gone wrong with his technique.

“I watched Laker from the dressing-room and I could see that he was relaxed and that he had a shorter run to the crease than I did,” Benaud said. “I used to take 12 paces. So I decided to experiment with a shorter run, which made me more balanced.”

Benaud went on to take 201 more wickets and was the Australia captain when the Ashes went back Down Under in 1959. “I should never have been captain of Australia, there’s no question of that,” he said with typical modesty. Ian Craig, the designated captain, was struck down with hepatitis and Neil Harvey, the vice-captain, was passed over.

The rest is history. Benaud’s Australia drubbed Peter May’s England 4-0. “It was not the most attractive series,” Benaud said, “but it was very popular. Suddenly I went from being nobody to being somebody.”

Yet of all his memories as a player, it is winning the Old Trafford Test in 1961 — Benaud taking six wickets to retain the Ashes — that stands out. And his favourite moment as commentator? “Warne to Gatting,” he said. “It was one of the most remarkable things.”

It is Warne, of course, who is most likely to stand between England and the Ashes. “I keep telling him that he is bowling better now than he has for a long time,” Benaud said. “During the winter I reminded him that he will only be 39 when Australia next come to England. He’s always being asked when he’s going to retire — like me — but he still has some great years ahead of him. It got him thinking that perhaps this wouldn’t be his last Ashes.”

So if England retain the urn this winter, thank Benaud’s confidence in them. And if they lose it 2½ years later, you know who to blame.

• My Spin on Cricket, by Richie Benaud, is published by Hodder (£8.99)