Benaud was born in Penrith, New South Wales, in 1930. He came from a cricket family, with his younger brother John Benaud also going on to become an Australian Test cricketer. His father Louis, a third generation Australian of French Huguenot descent, was a leg spinner who played for Penrith District Cricket Club in Sydney Grade Cricket, gaining attention for taking all twenty wickets in a match against St. Marys for 65 runs. Lou later moved to Parramatta region in western Sydney, and played for Cumberland. Benaud also used to live in Coraki, NSW.

In November 1948, at the age of 18, Benaud was selected for the New South Wales Colts, the state youth team. He scored 47 not out and took 3/37 in an innings win over Queensland. As a specialist batsman, he made his first class debut for New South Wales at the Sydney Cricket Ground against Queensland in the New Year’s match of the 1948–49 season. On a green pitch which was struck by a downpour on the opening day, Benaud’s spin was not used by Arthur Morris and he failed to make an impression with the bat in his only innings, scoring only two. New South Wales were the dominant state at the time, and vacancies in the team were scarce, particularly as there were no Tests that season and all of the national team players were available for the whole summer.

Benaud married Marcia Lavender in 1953 and had two sons, Greg and Jeffery, from this marriage; he divorced Marcia in 1967. In 1967, he married his second wife, Daphne Surfleet, who had worked for the English cricket writer E. W. Swanton. Benaud and Daphne often stayed at their holiday home in Beaulieu-sur-Mer on the French Riviera.

During the 1956 tour to England, he helped Australia to its only victory in the Lord’s Test, when he scored a rapid 97 in the second innings in 143 minutes from only 113 balls. His fielding, in particular at gully and short leg, was consistently of a high standard, in particular his acrobatic catch to dismiss Colin Cowdrey. He was unable to maintain the standards he had set in the West Indies, contributing little apart from the Lord’s Test. He ended the series with 200 runs at 25 and eight wickets at 42.5.

After the 1956 England tour, Benaud stayed behind in London to take a BBC presenter training course. He took up a journalism position with the News of the World, beginning as a police roundsman before becoming a sports columnist. In 1960 he made his first radio commentary in the United Kingdom at the BBC, after which he moved into television.

On his third and final tour to England in 1961, he was hampered by damaged tendons in his right shoulder, which forced him to miss the Second Test at Lord’s known as the “Battle of the Ridge”. In all he missed a third of the matches due to injury. Despite this impairment to his bowling shoulder, his team played with an aggressive strategy leading them to lose only one Test match and no other matches during the tour, honouring his pre-series pledge. The First Test at Edgbaston was drawn with Benaud taking three wickets. After Harvey led the team to victory at Lord’s, Benaud had an unhappy return in the Third at Headingley scoring two runs in two innings and taking match figures of 2/108 as Australia lost within three days. With the series balanced at 1–1, the Fourth Test at Old Trafford initially brought no improvement, with Benaud scoring 2 and taking 0/80 in the first innings. He made 1 in the second before a last-wicket partnership between Davidson and Graham McKenzie of 98 yielded a defendable target.

Benaud was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1961 for services to cricket. He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1985. In 1999 he was awarded a Logie Award for Most Outstanding Sports Broadcaster.

During England’s chase on the final afternoon it became apparent that, with Ted Dexter scoring quickly, Australia would lose the Test unless England were bowled out. Benaud went around the wicket and bowled into the footmarks, having Dexter caught behind and then Peter May bowled around his legs. Benaud’s 5/13 in 25 balls instigated an English collapse which saw Australia retain the Ashes. He finished the innings with 6/70. Benaud then took four wickets in the drawn Fifth Test to end the series 2–1. Benaud had a poor series with the bat, scoring 45 runs at 9, but was more successful with the ball, taking 15 wickets at 32.53. He finished the first-class tour with 627 runs and 61 wickets at 23.54. He was appointed an OBE in that year and in 1962 was named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year.

After retiring from playing in 1964, Benaud turned to full-time cricket journalism and commentary, dividing his time between Britain (where he worked for the BBC for many years before joining Channel 4 in 1999), and Australia (for the Nine Network). Overall he played in or commentated on approximately 500 Test matches, as he himself noted in one of his final interviews in Britain when asked if he would miss Test cricket.

Benaud was awarded life membership by the New South Wales Cricket Association, but he returned it in protest in 1970 when his younger brother John was removed from the captaincy. In 1967–68 he captained a Commonwealth team against Pakistan, playing in his last five first-class fixtures.

Benaud then led Australia on its first full tour of the Indian subcontinent, playing three and five Tests against Pakistan and India respectively. Benaud took 4/69 and 4/42 in the First Test in Dacca (now in Bangladesh), sealing Australia’s first win in Pakistan. He took four wickets in a Second Test in Lahore that sealed the series 2–0, the last time Australia would win a Test in Pakistan until Mark Taylor’s men in 1998, 37 years later. Six further wickets in the drawn Third Test saw Benaud end the series with 84 runs at 28 and 18 wickets at 21.11. Benaud made a strong start to the series against India, taking 3/0 in the first innings of the First Test in Delhi, before a 5/76-second innings haul secured an innings victory. Benaud had less of an impact on the next two Tests, which Australia lost and drew, totaling 6/244. He returned to form with 5/43 and 3/43 as India were defeated by an innings after being forced to follow on in the Fourth Test in Madras. A further seven wickets from the captain in the Fifth Test saw Australia secure a draw and the series 2–1.

He openly criticized the actions by the Chappell brothers (Trevor and Greg) in the post-match reaction to the underarm bowling incident of 1981, proving his moral integrity far outweighed his unconditional patriotism for Australia. He vacated the commentary booth when New Zealand was about to clinch a test victory at Lord’s in 1999, allowing former New Zealand captain-turned-commentator Ian Smith to call the famous victory of his compatriots. Some of his other memorable moments he commentated on included Shane Warne’s “Ball of the Century”, Ian Botham’s dominant all-round display during the 1981 Ashes, Dennis Lillee overtaking Benaud’s record for most wickets, and subsequent 300th and 310th wickets, and Andrew Symonds’ tackle on a streaker.

In 2004, Benaud starred in a series of television advertisements for the Australian Tourism Commission, aimed at promoting Australia as a tourist destination. Benaud’s ad featured him in various scenic locations uttering his signature comment, “Marvellous!”. It was also emulated by New Zealand broadcaster John Campbell. He appeared in Richie Benaud’s Greatest XI, a video in which he chooses his own team.

In 2007, he was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame at the Allan Border Medal award evening and in 2009 he was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

On 29 October 2008, Benaud’s mother, Irene, died, aged 104. He said of her, “She improved my love of vegetables by introducing the phrase, ‘You can’t go out and play cricket until you have eaten all your vegetables.'”

On 18 February 2009, during a radio interview, Benaud announced that he would be retiring from television commentary. Benaud said: “I’ll be doing Australian cricket next year—2010—but I don’t do any television at all anywhere else now and when I finish next year, then I’ll be doing other things … But that’ll be no more television commentary”.

It was announced on 15 November 2009, that Benaud had signed a three-year contract with the Nine Network to continue being part of their cricket coverage until 2013, although his role would change from that of ball-by-ball commentary. Benaud said: “I won’t be doing live commentary any more.” Someone asked me, “Does that mean you’ll never again go into the commentary box?”, “Well, the answer to that”, Benaud replied, “If there is, as there always can be, some emergency or a sensational happening on or off the field where it would be quite ridiculous not to go into the commentary box, of course I’ll be in there doing my job and doing it as professionally as I can. But I won’t be on the live commentary roster. But I will be doing all sorts of, what I regard as, interesting things for Channel Nine on the cricket—special features on the cricket …”. Richie commentated regularly during the 2011–12 season and was part of Nine’s commentating team/roster.

In October 2013 Benaud crashed his vintage 1965 Sunbeam Alpine into a wall while driving near his home in Coogee, a beachside suburb in Sydney’s east. He sustained a cracked sternum and shoulder injuries. Slow recovery meant he was unable to commentate for Australia’s Channel Nine during the 2013–14 Ashes series.

In November 2014, at age 84, Benaud announced that he had been diagnosed with skin cancer. He died in his sleep on 10 April 2015.

In November 2015, Benaud became an honouree at Bradman Foundation, having been a long-serving patron in his life. After rain interrupted the 2016 SCG Test against West Indies, the second day unofficially became Richie Benaud Day as 501 Benaud impersonators stayed at the SCG, which is a day before the annual Jane McGrath Day for Breast Cancer awareness and fundraising, which was again rained out.　

In 2017, the Australian Mint issued a 50-cent coin commemorating Benaud.

In October 2018, Benaud became the 40th Legend in the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.