Nicholas Clarke

For­mer Aus­tralian cap­tain Ian Chap­pell has rat­ed West In­dies leg­end Sir Gary Sobers as the great­est bats­man he has ever had the plea­sure of watch­ing. The 68-year-old, who scored 5345 runs in 75 Tests be­tween 1964 and 1980, made the com­ments while dis­cussing his favourite play­ers on Cricin­fo.com this week. Chap­pell based his as­sess­ment pri­mar­i­ly on Sobers's fa­mous knock of 254 against Aus­tralia in Mel­bourne in 1972, which he scored play­ing for a World XI team. "That in­nings, Sobers was the ge­nius... For­get all the oth­er things. For­get what he could do as a bowler, as a bats­man, and as a cap­tain. He is the best bats­man that I have ever seen, and that in­nings for 254 just con­firmed that for me," said Chap­pell. "I had the good for­tune of play­ing with him for a cou­ple of sea­sons with the South Aus­tralian side, so I had seen at very close quar­ters how good a play­er Sobers was, but this was just a re­in­force­ment. "

The per­for­mance came against an Aus­tralian at­tack in­clud­ing fear­some pace bowler Den­nis Lillee in his prime as well as fel­low quick Bob Massie, who went on to take 16 wick­ets in his de­but Test against Eng­land lat­er that year. "Gary was out for a duck in the first in­nings, bounced out by Lillee, first ball," Chap­pell re­mem­bered. "That night we were hav­ing a drink to­geth­er in the dress­ing room and Gary walked in. He walked over to Den­nis and said, 'Well bowled, Den­nis, but just re­mem­ber, I can bowl bounc­ers too, and I bat bet­ter than you.' So when Den­nis came in, Gary bowled a few bounc­ers at him. Then Gary came in to bat in the sec­ond in­nings. His side was in a bit of strife and he scored a mag­nif­i­cent 254, to un­der­line what a great play­er he was... He smashed us all over the park." He added that he was even more im­pressed when con­sid­er­ing Sobers's per­son­al prob­lems at the time.

"Go­ing in­to the rest day, Gary was 139 not out... When I walked in­to their dress­ing room that night to have a drink, he was sit­ting on his own in the cor­ner. That was a bit of a sur­prise for me be­cause Gary was nor­mal­ly in thick of things. He loved to be chat­ting about crick­et and what­ev­er it might be, but in with his team. "He said, 'Ian, come over.' And I walked over and he said, 'Sit down,' and he said, 'Mate, Pru's left me'. Pru be­ing his wife, from Mel­bourne. And I said, 'Gary, if that's what p-----g you off then give me her phone num­ber and I will ring her up and tell her to come home im­me­di­ate­ly.' A bit of dark hu­mour, I guess. And when he didn't laugh - be­cause Gary was very quick to laugh - I thought to my­self, 'This is quite se­ri­ous'. But it didn't stop him from tak­ing it out on us when he went out to bat again." Thanks to Sobers con­tri­bu­tion, the World XI were able to come back from a 101-run first in­nings deficit to win the match by 96 runs. At the time, Aus­tralian bat­ting leg­end Don Brad­man was moved to de­scribe the in­nings as the best he had ever seen.