Nass­er Khan

Bar­ba­di­an Gary Sobers, left-hand­ed, is, with­out doubt, the great­est all-rounder in crick­et his­to­ry, a com­plete crick­eter.

One of the most el­e­gant, rhyth­mic, pow­er­ful and ex­quis­ite bats­men ever, triple- pur­pose bowler, good enough to be cho­sen pure­ly as a fast bowler, wrist-spin­ner or or­tho­dox, slow left-arm bowler, and a su­perb field­s­man... Just imag­ine the op­tions! Sim­ply put, there has nev­er been a more com­plete crick­eter, and any at­tempt to com­plete­ly doc­u­ment his ex­ploits and achieve­ments would al­ways be in­ad­e­quate. Sim­i­lar­ly, any at­tempt to cap­ture in words his great artistry, and crick­et­ing ge­nius would find most writ­ers and speak­ers short of the crease.

A com­pi­la­tion of his great­est mo­ments on video would en­com­pass en­thralling vol­umes, in spite of the rel­a­tive­ly-lim­it­ed footage avail­able, com­pared to more mod­ern top play­ers. On his Test de­but at age 17 in 1954, at Sabi­na Park in Ja­maica ver­sus Eng­land, picked as a bowler, he scored, bat­ting at No 9, 14 not out and 26, and cap­tured 4 for 75 off 28.5 overs in the first in­nings of a los­ing game which saw the se­ries squared at two apiece in the fifth and fi­nal match. A mere four years lat­er, in 1958, ver­sus Pak­istan on that same ground, he be­came and re­mains the youngest play­er, at 21, to score a triple cen­tu­ry (365 not out) in Test crick­et, then al­so the high­est in­di­vid­ual Test score.

Grow­ing up in the Bay area, in close prox­im­i­ty to the Wan­der­ers Club, one of the top clubs in the crick­et-crazed is­land, pro­vid­ed young Gary with an abun­dance of op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­vel­op his God-giv­en tal­ent from an ear­ly age. Just imag­ine Sobers in full flight, in part­ner­ship with his fel­low left-han­der, Bri­an Lara, with whom he has shared a spe­cial friend­ship and bond. What an ul­ti­mate crick­et­ing joy that would be!

Most mem­o­rable were the flash­ing of the ball to the bound­ary, all tim­ing and with­out ap­par­ent ef­fort; that mem­o­rable, grace­ful cut be­hind point, and the off dri­ve on the up that siz­zled through cov­ers al­ready stand­ing a few yards deep­er than usu­al, "not a man moved" shots, as we say here in the West In­dies. Con­trast this de­scrip­tive with the as­ton­ish­ing fury and de­struc­tion of his 254 for the World XI ver­sus Aus­tralia at Mel­bourne, in 1972, his 1968 in­fa­mous six 6s off Mal­colm Nash, in an Eng­lish coun­ty game for Not­ting­hamshire ver­sus Glam­or­gan, and his mem­o­rable as­sault on Riche Be­naud in the fa­mous lied Test at Bris­bane in 1961, dis­miss­ing sug­ges­tions that he could not play Be­naud's leg-spin.

His fast in-swinger trapped many a bats­man (wit­ness Ge­off Boy­cott) in front of the stumps ear­ly in their in­nings. Equal­ly ef­fec­tive were his slow or­tho­dox and Chi­na­man and goo­gly styles of bowl­ing.

His fast bowl­ing spells of 1966 and 1969 ver­sus Eng­land, in Eng­land, of 5-41 and 5-42 left the strong Eng­land bat­ting line-up each time in dis­ar­ray. Not to be for­got­ten was that Sobers was a field­er of ut­most bril­liance, dis­play­ing daz­zling, pan­ther-like speed in snar­ing mem­o­rable catch­es at short leg off Lance Gibbs, and fan­tas­tic ones off Hall and Grif­fith at slip.

He held 109 catch­es in Test crick­et. His ex­cep­tion­al nat­ur­al ath­let­ic abil­i­ties were al­so ev­i­dent in golf, foot­ball, ta­ble ten­nis, domi­noes and bas­ket­ball, all of which he took part in at the high­est lev­el for Bar­ba­dos. Sobers re­gards his match-sav­ing 163, in part­ner­ship with cousin Hol­ford at Lord's in 1966, as his most valu­able in­ning, a tes­ti­mo­ny of his abil­i­ty to save games as well as win them. Sir Don­ald Brad­man de­scribes most vivid­ly his ob­ser­va­tion of Sir Gary:

"He is sim­ply the great­est crick­et­ing be­ing ever to have walked the Earth..." In Michael Man­ley's A His­to­ry of West In­dies Crick­et, the au­thor de­scribes him as "the first com­plete Caribbean folk hero af­ter George Headley." Aus­tralian fast bowler, Kei­th Miller, de­scribes him as "a bat­ting wiz­ard" and "the com­plete crick­eter," while renowned crick­et writer, E W Swan­ton, in his book, Sort of a Crick­et Per­son, writes:

"There is a tra­di­tion of good sports­man­ship in West In­dies crick­et, long es­tab­lished, which has nev­er weak­ened. Gary Sobers is its per­fect ex­pres­sion. CLR James called him "this su­perb prod­uct of the mod­ern age."

Two blem­ish­es on his ca­reer were in 1963, af­ter a de­c­la­ra­tion at QP Oval ver­sus Eng­land. The West In­dies lost and his ef­fi­gy was burnt in Port-of-Spain. This loss led to a de­fla­tion in the team spir­it of the West In­dies for a while. The oth­er blem­ish re­volved around his ill-ad­vised vis­it to Rhode­sia in 1970, for which, naive to the po­lit­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of his ac­tions, he pub­licly apol­o­gised to his crit­ics and fans, ex­press­ing his sin­cere re­grets. Nel­son Man­dela, up­on meet­ing Sir Gary in 1991, re­lat­ed how he had fol­lowed Sobers' ex­ploits from the con­fines of his prison. The Mighty Spar­row im­mor­talised him in ca­lyp­so, "the great­est crick­eter on Earth or Mars." The British TV se­ries, "This is your life" has ac­knowl­edged that one of their most pop­u­lar episodes was their trib­ute to Sobers.

To­day, though on­ly spo­rad­i­cal­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with West In­dies crick­et, Sir Gary prefers the oc­ca­sion­al game of golf, horse rac­ing and pro­mot­ing his beloved home­land is­land of Bar­ba­dos to the rest of the world. Sir Gary is loved the world over, and is that rare In­di­vid­ual whose name can still evoke the kind of rev­er­ence re­served for but a spe­cial few. He is and has al­ways been a "class act," nat­ur­al in grace, style and poise, con­duct and charis­ma, a man of true cul­ture and re­fine­ment who has done a great deal to project a pos­i­tive im­age of his peo­ple. His on­ly Test cen­tu­ry at Queen's Park Oval was to­wards the lat­ter part of his ca­reer, when he scored 132 (bowled Prasan­na) ver­sus In­dia in a drawn match in 1971.

pro­file

Sir Garfield St Aubrun Sobers; Born on Ju­ly 28,1936, at Bay Land, St Michael, Bar­ba­dos, the fifth of six chil­dren to Sha­mont and Thel­ma.

Teams: Bay Street Boys, Pri­ma­ry In­ter-School Crick­et–Kent (age 13), Bar­ba­dos Crick­et League

Com­mon­wealth XI (1958-'64)-Rest of the World XI (1965-'72)

Po­lice (age 16,) Bar­ba­dos Crick­et As­soc- E W Swan­ton's XI (1963-'64)

Bar­ba­dos (1953-'74), de­but ver­sus In­dia-E R Gilli­gan's XI (1958-'59)

West In­dies (age 17) (1954-'74)-MCC (1961-/62)

De­but ver­sus Eng­land-Ja­maican XI (1965)

Rad­cliffe (Lan­cashire League)-C C Hunte's XI (1963-'64)

Not­ting­hamshire (UK Coun­ty League) (1968-'74)-South Aus­tralia (1961-'64)

Chil­dren: Math­ew, Daniel, Genevieve (Mar­ried Aus­tralian Pru­dence Kir­by 1969, di­vorced 1985).

�2 Cap­tained West In­dies in 39 Tests–1965-'72, the Bar­ba­dos team in 1966 and 1967, Not­ting­hamshire from 1968-'71 and the Rest of the World.

�2 Best Test bowl­ing per­for­mance: 6-73 at Bris­bane ver­sus Aus­tralia, 1968; West In­dies won.

Sobers' last Test was played at QP Oval in March, 1974.

1971: First Test play­er to 7,000 runs and 200 wick­ets

1974: first test play­er to 8,000 runs

1973: In his last Test he played at Lord's, he scored 150, help­ing to beat Eng­land by an in­ning and 226 runs.

ac­co­lades

-Wis­den Crick­eter of the year 1963-'64

-Wal­ter Lawrence Tro­phy 1974

-Karl Nunes award 1959-'60

-Knight­ed (Sir)1975 by Queen Eliz­a­beth II

-One of five Wis­den Crick­eters of the cen­tu­ry 2000

-In­ductee of Crick­et Halls of fame in Hart­ford, Con­necti­cut and An­tigua

-Play­ers' Pavil­ion named in his ho­n­our Kens­ing­ton Oval, Bar­ba­dos, 1985

-In­de­pen­dence postage stamp in his ho­n­our, 1966

-De­clared a Na­tion­al Hero 1998

-Sir Garfield Sobers Sports Com­plex, Bar­ba­dos

-2004 One of five West In­dies Best-Ever

-ICC an­nu­al play­er of the year award is named af­ter him and ICC Hall of fame in­ductee

-Cricin­fo's great­est crick­et all­rounder 2007

-2003 Of­fi­cer of the Or­der of Aus­tralia

-An­nu­al Sobers Int'l Schools Tour­na­ment

-Sir Gary Sobers Mas­ters Golf Tour­na­ment