Sir Garfield (Garry) Sobers, who recently died aged 89, was one of the world’s greatest cricketers. He played first-class cricket in Barbados, Australia and England.
Sobers was a pioneer who broke records. He was the first player in Test cricket to attain 8,000 runs and scored an unbeaten 365 against Pakistan in 1958. A decade later, he famously smashed six successive sixes in one over, playing for Nottinghamshire against Glamorgan.
Sobers was born in the St Michael parish of Barbados on July 28 1936 to working-class parents, as the fifth of six children. His father, Shamont, was a sailor with the Canadian merchant navy who was killed when his ship was sunk by a German U-boat in 1942. This left Garry’s widowed mother, Thelma, to care for the family on a modest pension. The young Garry was just five years old.
Sobers’ versatility stood out from the start. A left-handed batsman and medium-seam bowler, he hit the ball with merciless ferocity, displaying a variety of dazzling strokes. He was also a formidable fielder, taking 109 catches.
Sobers burst onto the scene as a 16-year-old, taking seven wickets from 89 overs for Barbados against India’s tourists in 1953. In 98 Test matches over two decades he scored 8,032 runs, including 26 centuries, averaging 57.78, and claimed 235 wickets.
When fellow West Indian Brian Lara broke his batting world record in Antigua in 1994 with a breathtaking innings of 375 runs, Sobers was among the first to go onto the pitch to congratulate his young disciple.
Despite his genius, Sobers had his vices. He admitted to a gambling addiction, frequenting racecourses and casinos around the world. He was a heavy drinker who sometimes overindulged in rum, port and brandy and had a reputation for being a womaniser.
He later confessed to drinking all night and not sleeping before important Test matches. One of the few blots on his career was Sobers’s widely criticised decision to play cricket in white-minority-ruled Rhodesia in 1970.
On retirement in 1963, Frank Worrell, the first black captain of the West Indies, strongly recommended his then 28-year-old protégé for the captaincy of the team. Sobers went on to lead the Caribbean islands in 39 tests over the next decade, laying the foundation for the all-conquering teams of Clive Lloyd and Viv Richards.
Between 1980 and 1995, the West Indies went unbeaten in Test series, also winning two World Cups in 1975 and 1979, before losing a third consecutive final in 1983. Sobers’ consummate, infectious self-confidence had helped the team to achieve a world-class status that transformed the previous “Calypso cricketers” into the global cricketing colossus.
In 1998 Sobers was declared a national hero of Barbados by the country’s parliament, and his statue stands immortalised at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, where a pavilion is also named after him.
In 2000 the Wisden cricketing magazine named Sobers the second best cricketer of the 20th century after Australia’s Don Bradman, who had earlier declared the Barbadian “the greatest cricketer of all time”. Four years later the International Cricket Council named its world player of the year trophy after Sobers.
Former England cricketer Mike Selvey noted: “Never has there been an all-rounder such as Garry Sobers, and never again is it likely that one will appear.”
The president of Cricket West Indies, Kishore Shallow, described Sobers as “the greatest cricketer the world has ever seen”, while Barbadian historian Hilary Beckles observed that Sobers “invented the new order of the game and became the symbol of West Indian excellence in the age of independence”.
• Adebajo is a professor and senior research fellow at the University of Pretoria’s Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.