- Cricket world mourns West Indies great Garry Sobers.
- Bradman hailed Sobers as the greatest cricketer of all time.
- Sobers retired from Test cricket in 1974.
Cricket in the 20th century was full of great players, but by universal consent two stand head and shoulders above the rest – Australian batsman Donald Bradman and West Indian all-rounder Garry Sobers, who has died aged 89.
“A great innings has come to an end. In our hearts, now and forever, Sir Garfield Sobers,” West Indies Cricket posted on social media on Friday.
In a poll of 100 cricket experts in 1999, both Bradman and Sobers were named in Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the 20th Century, with the West Indian all-rounder receiving 90 votes.
Bradman had an extraordinary 100 votes and yet before his own death in 2001, Don paid the ultimate tribute to Sobers.
“He is, in my opinion, the greatest cricketer of all time,” said Don.
This tribute is based not just on the statistics or on style – of which Sobers had plenty – but on the breathtaking breadth of his cricketing ability.
As a batsman, Sobers scored 8,032 runs in his 93 Tests at an average of 57.78, figures that would in themselves guarantee him a place in any pantheon.
On top of that, Sobers was a bowler who took 235 wickets at 34.03 runs each.
Sometimes he opened with left-arm quick, but if the pitch broke, he switched to left-arm spin – orthodox or wrist – which first brought him to the attention of the West Indies selectors as a teenager.
He was also a lightning fielder and took 109 Test catches, often at slip, but as captain he placed himself in danger at short leg when he brought off-spinner Lance Gibbs into the attack.
“The guy could do almost everything on a cricket field except umpire,” Australian all-rounder Alan Davidson told The Cricket Monthly on the occasion of Sobers’ 80th birthday in 2016.
“He was a complete cricketer, a magnificent fielder, bowled all types of bowling and when he was fit he decimated absolutely fantastic bowling attacks.
“You couldn’t field him because he just had the innate ability to be able to score runs when he wanted to.”
‘Early Promise’
Garfield St Aubrun Sobers, who was known as both Gary and Garry, was born in Bridgetown, Barbados, on July 28, 1936, the fifth of six children.
He was only six when his father Shamont, a sailor, was killed when his ship CNS Lady Hawkins was hit by two torpedoes from a German U-boat off the coast of North Carolina.
Sobers showed tremendous early promise in several sports. He made his debut for Barbados against the Indian tourists as a spinner in January 1953 aged just 16.
He played against the MCC tourists a year later and, after just two first-class matches, was selected as a replacement for the ill Alf Valentine for a Test debut against England at Sabina Park in March 1954.
The tourists won by nine wickets, but Sobers made an early impression, removing Trevor Bailey in his first over and taking 4-75 in the tourists’ first innings.
Record breaker
Four years later, he switched to a different flight against Pakistan in Kingston, breaking a world record in the process.
Since 1938, Len Hutton’s 364 against Australia at the Oval had stood as the highest individual score in Test cricket. Sobers, in his maiden Test century, made 365 not out, setting a record that would stand until another West Indian, Brian Lara, made 375 against England in 1994.
In the drawn Test at Brisbane in 1960–61, he scored 132, setting the tone for a memorable series.
“It was definitely one of the biggest innings I’ve ever seen in my life,” Davidson said.
“He didn’t just beat the field. He split the field. His placement was just incredible.”
Sobers succeeded Frank Worrell as West Indies captain for the 1964–65 series at home in Australia and led the hosts to their first ever series win against the Aussies.
Results were mixed under his captaincy, which lasted until 1972 when he handed over to Rohan Kanhai, but with Sobers’ hand at the helm, West Indies cricket continued to develop and develop into the dominant force of the late 1970s and 1980s.
As Sobers aged, his influence on the field declined, but he still stroked 254 for the rest of the world at the MCG in 1972 in what Bradman described as “probably the greatest exhibition of batting ever seen in Australia”.
Outside the international arena, Sobers helped South Australia win the Sheffield Shield and played for Nottinghamshire in England’s county championship.
In 1968, while facing Glamorgan bowler Malcolm Nash, he became the first player to hit six sixes in an over – a feat equaled only once before in first-class cricket by Indian all-rounder Ravi Shastri in 1985.
Sobers retired from Test cricket in 1974 and was knighted a year later.
The International Cricket Council honored him in 2004 when he held the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for the annual world player of the year, but it is Bradman’s testimony which will mark him as one of cricket’s greatest players.
