For a cricket fan, there can’t be a worse piece of news than the passing of one of the greatest of all time. Not just one of the greatest, probably the greatest of all time. Born on July 28, 1936 in Barbados, Sir Garry Sobers is no more, just days ahead of his 90th birthday he breathed his last on Friday.
Cricket history can’t be discussed without him. And without Don Bradman. They didn’t play against each other though. Bradman belonged to the era before Sobers’. Before the great West Indian, there was a huge consensus that the Aussie was the best cricketer in history until then. But the arrival of Sobers diluted that perception quite a bit. Because, unlike Bradman, Sobers could also bowl and on top of that, bowl in many styles. He could bowl left-arm fast medium, slow left-arm orthodox and left-arm wrist spin.
Sobers played 93 Tests for the West Indies, scored more than 8,000 runs with the help of 26 centuries and 30 fifties, with his highest score being 365 not out against Pakistan in 1958. It was a record that lasted more than three and a half decades before fellow West Indian Brian Lara broke it in 1994 against England. Sobers was also the first player ever to hit six sixes in an over in professional cricket. Playing for Nottinghamshire against Glamorgan in a county cricket match at Swansea in 1968, he took 36 off a Malcolm Nash over. The world was stunned. It was a first in the long history of the game.
Sobers also took 235 wickets and won many matches for the Caribbean team with his bowling. He played his cricket at a time when racism, if not at the height of its powers, could still be felt everywhere. And since the British Empire was still running the show over a large part of the world in one way or another, the West Indians particularly looked to punish England on the cricket field. It was their way of asserting themselves and letting the world, particularly England, know that they were no less. CLR James, who wrote one of the greatest cricket books, “Beyond a Boundary”, stressed many times in the masterpiece how seriously the Caribbean players took playing against the English team. Sobers was instrumental in changing the perception. He proved that black players were as good as anyone else.
Just behind Bradman as per Wisden!
In the year 2000, Wisden, considered the cricket Bible, released a list of the 100 Greatest Cricketers of the Century. Sobers ranked second in that list, just behind Bradman, and ahead of Sir Jack Hobbs, Shane Warne and Sir Viv Richards. Sachin Tendulkar wasn’t part of the top five, but he was named the second greatest batter of all time behind Bradman.
Sobers debuted against England in 1954, and exactly 20 years later, he hung up his boots in Port of Spain against the same opposition. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to cricket in 1975. Post-retirement, he took to coaching, writing and commentating. He was a soft-spoken man to all intents and purposes. However, he was a flamboyant personality on the field, an out-and-out entertainer. Legend has it that once he scored a century against England while battling a hangover. He often spoke of the deterioration in West Indies cricket with a heavy heart. His passing marks an end to the most glorious epoch in cricket history. While no one is considered bigger than the game, Sobers and Bradman got closer to achieving that. World cricket is much poorer today, no two ways about it.