The arguments about who is the greatest cricketer of all time will always rage. WG, Bradman, Hobbs, Kallis, Stokes (per-lease…) and so on, but it is hard to avoid the claim of Sir Garfield Sobers who died yesterday at the ripe old age of 89.
If you simply tot up runs, wickets and catches, then of course he won’t be up there with the giants of the multi-format era. However, when you consider that his Test run record of 8,032 lasted more than two decades and his individual score of 365 more than thirty, he had stats to support his reputation as a superstar for any age. And remember he reached that high at the age of 21, and remarkably it was his first century!
Media obituaries will detail his career highs and personal lows, but I shall focus on what little I remember of him as a young cricket follower. Unfortunately, his career ended before my family bought our first colour TV, so my memories of his colourful batting and bowling were entirely in monochrome. I recall his unbeaten 150 for the West Indies at Lord’s in 1973, although his bowling wasn’t used much in that game. In 1968, he gave up club cricket for the first-class county circuit, spending several seasons at Nottinghamshire.
When his adopted county featured in the BBC’s live coverage of one-dayers, notably the Sunday afternoon John Player League, I had the opportunity to watch his willowy frame cut and pull with abandon, usually encased in a thick sweater. Those were the days when it rained in summer and four an over was considered a blinding scoring rate in List A games! I don’t recall him bowling spin, although that was why he was originally picked for his Barbados debut. However, I did find his left-arm fast-medium action rather awkward, a million miles from Michael Holding’s smooth-as-silk style, but it netted him most of his 1,043 first-class wickets, 235 in Tests. Left-arm seamers were a rare sight in those days so for me he did stand out.
His six sixes in an over for Notts off Malcolm Nash – another left-arm seam and spin all-rounder – was thankfully captured by BBC Wales cameras and, although I was only seven, I do vividly remember this being A Thing. Dad must have impressed that on my youthful brain. Garry’s body was probably ready to retire in ’74 at 38, and his final performances weren’t his best. However, he embodied cavalier Caribbean cricket before the Windies became crammed with such exciting players to dominate the sport in the late ‘70s and ‘80s. He was too old to register in my first list of heroes such as Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards and Joel Garner but in retrospect he paved the way. Had I been born five years earlier he may well have been at the top.
Many years ago, my sister and brother-in-law gave me his
autobiography – signed at Liverpool Street station – for a birthday or Christmas
gift. It wasn’t the most riveting, I admit, but it fleshed out Sobers as a human
being and cricket observer rather than a mere collector of Test records. Now
here we are, awash with other writers eulogising his amazing feats. As a legend,
perhaps he doesn’t quite match the Don but, as an all-rounder, he is the GOAT.
