Australia's Richie Benaud injured in car crash

Former Australia captain Richie Benaud, the voice of cricket for millions of television viewers, has been injured in a car accident and will remain in hospital for the next few days, Channel Nine said on Thursday.

The 83-year-old, who led Australia to three successive Ashes series victories in the 1950s and 1960s, crashed his car into a low wall as he drove to his home in the Sydney beachside suburb of Coogee on Wednesday morning.

Despite sustaining chest and shoulder injuries, Benaud was in a stable condition and alert enough to joke that he was more concerned about his car - a 1963 Sunbeam Alpine - than his own health.

"Richie's remarkable," his wife Daphne was quoted as saying. "At first I was quite concerned but today he's looking unbelievably well."

Benaud would normally be expected to be in the commentary box for the first day of the first test of the Ashes series against England in Brisbane on November 21.

Channel Nine chief executive David Gyngell, though, said the "national treasure" would return to work when he was "good and ready".