When a panel of 100 experts voted for Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Century in 2000, Don Bradman was a unanimous choice. But second, with 90 votes – 60 clear of third-placed Jack Hobbs – was Garry Sobers, the genius from Barbados who has di.ed 11 days short of his 90th birthday.
Bradman first, Sobers second, daylight third. The only surprise was that 10 members of the panel ignored him, for Sobers was almost certainly the greatest all-round cricketer in the game’s history, scoring 8,032 Test runs at an average of nearly 58, taking 235 wickets with a mixture of left-arm pace, orthodox spin and wrist-spin, and holding 109 catches. Even WG Grace, his only credible rival, would have doffed his cap to that.
In 1968, Sobers became the first player in first-class cricket to hit six sixes in an over, demolishing Glamorgan’s Malcolm Nash. When the last of his blows cleared the ropes beyond midwicket, the BBC commentator Wilf Wooller famously declared: ‘He’s done it, he’s done it! And my goodness, it’s gone way down to Swansea.’
It was the kind of exclamation that accompanied Sobers throughout a 20-year Test career in which the extraordinary power of his hitting was matched by his leonine grace, and his versatility with the ball was like nothing the game had previously seen.
After making his first-class debut for Barbados aged 16 in 1953, he was picked for West Indies a year later. But it was not until February 1958 that he first left an indelible mark in the record books, turning his maiden Test century, against Pakistan in Kingston, Jamaica, into a then world-record 365 not out – which stood until April 1994, when Brian Lara surpassed it against England in Antigua.
As the Recreation Ground dissolved into pandemonium, Sobers calmly walked out to the middle to embrace the man who had knocked him off his perch.
Sir Garfield Sobers has di.ed at the age of 89, Cricket West Indies has announced
Barbados-born Sobers played for the West Indies for 20 years, making both his first and last Test appearances in 1954 and 1974 respectively against England
Sobers was an elegant and destructive batsman, whose first Test century was a world record 365 against Pakistan
The former West Indies captain took 235 wickets during his storied Test career
Sobers was bestowed a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II in Bridgetown in 1975
Back in 1958, Sobers had celebrated his triple-century with 125 and 109 not out in the next Test, in Guyana, and never looked back. Of the 108 Test batsmen to have scored at least 5,000 runs, only Bradman, Ken Barrington and Wally Hammond had a higher average.
And, after his final Test appearance in 1974, his tally of runs remained out on its own until Geoff Boycott ticked it off for England against India at Delhi at the end of 1981.
It was a pity those numbers did not include the 254 he made at Melbourne for a Rest of the World XI against Australia in 1971-72, when the international game had to rearrange fixtures because of the ban on apartheid South Africa.
Bradman reckoned that innings was ‘probably the best seen in Australia’, while Sobers – by then 36 – said: ‘That was probably as close to perfection I ever came with the bat.’
Had he never scored a run, he would have made the West Indian team as a specialist bowler, six times claiming at least five wickets in an innings. Yet his all-round skills extended beyond cricket: he also represented Barbados at football, basketball and golf.
Life was not always a bed of roses. His father, Shamont, died when the boat he was on was hit by a torpedo from a U-boat when Sobers was five. With a grim irony, that freed him to play sport on the street, which his father had forbidden.
Later, he drank heavily following the death of his West Indies team-mate, Collie Smith, in a car accident on the A34 near Stone in 1959. Sobers had been at the wheel when the car was hit by a truck, and was later fined £10 for driving without due care.
Only a pledge to himself to ‘do two men’s jobs, Collie’s and mine’ saved him from alcoholism, though he never sidestepped his love of gambling.
Sobers, widely regarded as the sport’s greatest all-rounder, died 11 days short of his 90th birthday
Sobers waves as he rings the five minute bell at Lord’s back in June 2016
Sobers pictured alongside King Charles, during a reception at the Prime Minister’s residence in Bridgetown in 2019
Seven years after Smith’s death, Sobers touched new all-round heights while captaining West Indies in England. He scored 702 runs at an average of 103, took 20 wickets and held 10 catches.
Boycott, who played in that series, wrote in the Daily Telegraph about a batting technique that was all Sobers’s own: ‘He hardly ever played and missed. Spectators will remember his high backlift and powerful strokes, but his defence was excellent as well.
‘He preferred to stay back and was a magnificent back-foot player before committing to forward strokes, and when he chose to hook, he hooked down with super control. I never saw him sweep. He didn’t need it.’
With the sport in mourning, the president of Cricket West Indies, Kishore Shallow, said: ‘Sir Garfield Sobers became more than a sporting icon. He became a symbol of Caribbean excellence, resilience and possibility.
His achievements brought pride to Barbados, inspiration to the West Indies and admiration from every corner of the cricketing world.”