Just read the very sad news that "Gary" Sobers has dield at the age of 89. A great cricketer and a great ambassador for the island of Barbados.
Just read the very sad news that "Gary" Sobers has dield at the age of 89. A great cricketer and a great ambassador for the island of Barbados.
The greatest all round cricketer that I have ever seen.
Sad news. Unquestionably the best all-rounder. I remember watching him bowl to Keith Fletcher in one of the Rest of the World versus England matches at Edgbaston. Fletcher couldn't lay a bat on it and I wondered how anyone ever scored runs at Test level. I could go on for ages, he was very special.
And a friend to the Bethell family so an influence on young Jacob.
No matter how good he was, he came across as bitter when anyone talked about Botham and didn't like it when people praised some of his great performances and even made comments that both Flintoff and Stokes were better. There is no reason why praise can't be given to all players and no reason to feel that giving praise to Botham was trying to take anything away from Sobers himself. I also heard him having a go when England were beating West Indies in England after years of no success, he didn't like it and belittled his fellow countrymen saying they were, "Playing like Englishmen.. " and appeared to suggest that England never had any good cricketers. It doesn't seem that he liked giving English cricketers anything.
I hadn't picked up any of that about Sir Garry and it's disappointing to hear.
I see there is a new biography of Sobers by Duncan Hamilton. I'm not sure if he will be pleased that publicity around his death will improve sales or disappointed that the book is immediately out of date.
Here's my own (Edgbaston related) anecdote about Sobers. It comes with a warning that it was told to me by my good friend, the late Bryan Curtiss, who was not averse to the odd tall tale.
We have to go back to 1970 and the Gillette Cup first round match between Warwickshire and Notts at Edgbaston (60 overs a side). There was no play because of rain on the first two of the allocated three days so, on one of those days, Bryan found himself in the bar with Garry and a few others. Garry was knocking back the gin and tonics at a great rate. Someone braver than I would have been asked him what he would do if he reached the point where he couldn't combine top level cricket performances with lots of alcohol. Garry's reply was that he would have to give up. When asked whether he thought he would find it easy to give up drinking, the great man said: "No, I would give up cricket."
And just for the record, when the match eventually started, Sobers took 1-19 off 12 overs and scored 70 not out to lead Notts to a five wicket victory. He was man of the match. And it wasn't a bad Bears side, with eight current or future internationals in it.
I was in Barbados a few years back (2022 I think) when England played two 50 over games against the West Indies. They had a warm up games at the Three W's ground at the university. At the interval special awards were being presented to both Garry and Everton Weekes. While this was going on the two teams had lined up at the side to watch. When it was over all the players ran on to the field to get on with the game. What I noticed was our captain Eoin Morgan ran over specially to shake Garry's hand. I thought that showed just how much Sir Garfield is respected in the game.
From speaking to cricket lovers in Barbados I do know he was disappointed at the decline of the WI cricket - we noticed how kids are not playing cricket over there like they used to. Influenced by American TV with basketball and, of course, football.