For my entire life, there has been only one serious answer to the question of who is the greatest cricketer who ever lived. The answer is Sir Garfield Sobers. Nobody else was even considered for a long time.

Sobers, national hero of Barbados, was simply the best, and, for a long time, probably the most famous person in the whole Caribbean. Sadly, the great man died at around 9:00 am on July 17, aged 89. And though it’s customary to mourn death, we are grateful that he was among us, and we had him with us for such a long time.

Sobers was simply the greatest. As a batter he was the best of his time. His bowling may not have equalled his batting, but it was of remarkably high quality. What elevated it to an almost unimaginable level was the fact that he mastered three styles of bowling: left-arm fast, left-arm orthodox, and wrist spin. And if that weren’t enough, he could also field anywhere and catch everything.

I’m still not sure we appreciate how wondrous he was on a cricket field. He mastered every cricketing skill there is. I actually never heard of him keeping wicket, though I’m sure he’d have been good at that too. That’d be like Usain Bolt, in addition to being the fastest human who ever raced, also becoming a world-class marathon runner and a good hurdler as well. Or, perhaps, like Tom Brady, in addition to being one of the best quarterbacks in American football, also becoming a great running back, a world-class wide receiver, and probably a good kicker as well.

Sobers played for Barbados as a 16-year-old. At 17, in 1954, he made his debut for the West Indies against England in Jamaica, replacing the injured Alf Valentine. He was, at the time, a left-arm orthodox spinner who batted at nine in the order. His four first innings wickets made him the West Indies’ top wicket-taker in the game, and he made 14 out of his side’s 139 in the first innings.

Omitted for the first Test in Jamaica when Australia toured in 1955, Sobers found himself opening the innings when the tour reached Barbados, after regular opener and captain Jeffrey Stollmeyer was injured treading on a ball. His potential as a batter was obvious to all, especially when he belted a rambunctious 43 with 10 fours. Australian fast bowler Keith Miller was struck for six fours in his first two overs to Sobers. At the end of the series Miller gifted the teenager one of his bats and prophesied that he’d become a better batter than bowler.

Garfield Sobers down the years.

Miller’s words came true, for sure, by 1958. Batting at number three against Pakistan in Jamaica, Sobers went past Len Hutton’s record to score an unbeaten 365. His record stood for 36 years when it was broken by Brian Lara, a player who worshipped him, one he held in high regard as well.

Sobers joined Radcliffe in the Lancashire League in England around 1958, and it is then that he started to add fast bowling and wrist spin to his armoury. The wickets rewarded seam more than spin and he also started to experiment with wrist spin. And the crowds must have found it delightfully original and entertaining when he’d open the bowling then switch to both varieties of spin in the same innings. I have not heard of any other player who was genuinely world-class in those three styles of bowling. This likely made him the most versatile bowler ever.

To think that he was also among the most productive, dominant batters in the game during much of his career marks him as something of a cricketing super hero. I always thought that my first pick for an all-time world XI would be Donald Bradman. The Australian basically guaranteed a sizeable number of runs every game. Sobers might not score as heavily, but he could fill almost any gap you could have in your bowling attack, making it a more rounded one. That could be very valuable, especially in Tests where you almost always need 20 wickets to win.

To many of us in the Caribbean, Sobers was just on another level. It was him at the very top, daylight, and then others. There was simply nobody with the skills and the credentials to match him. Even those of us who started following the game after he retired still saw him as someone who’d never be rivalled. One of the regrets of my life was that I never did well enough as a member of my high school’s Under-14 team to be included in a group from different schools who were to be briefly coached by the great man on a visit to Jamaica. I envied the two or three teammates who were privileged enough to meet him in the flesh.

Garfield Sobers.

He was almost a myth to us. Those of us who were in love with the great game could hardly understand how one man could become so good at it. We later saw Sir Vivian Richards as somewhat otherworldly as well, but not even he could compete with Sobers’ all-round brilliance. Nor could Jacques Kallis. Some mention his name whenever cricket’s greatest all-rounders are discussed, and rightly so. The South African was amongst cricket’s best ever: great batter and high-quality fast bowler. Yet he lacked Sobers’ astonishing bowling versatility and, to my eye, never quite matched his brilliance or imagination as a batter.

Those who knew Sobers well agreed that as much, as he was a great cricketer, he was also a good man. They speak of his humility and generosity. I had a friend, the late Glenroy Henry, who migrated to England from St Vincent in the 1960s. He played club cricket for Hillsbury Town. During his first or second year on the team he was struggling with his batting, when, fortunately, he met Sobers, who was kind enough to give him some pointers. As a result, his form improved to such an extent that he was named Player of the Year. Henry never tired of speaking of the great man.

Rest well, Sir Garfield. You made our lives better.

garfield.v.robinson@gmail.com

Garfield Robinson