Cricket nuts like an argument. Who is the best fast bowler ever? The best spinner? The best wicketkeeper? The best slip catcher? They – oh all right, we – can spend hours discussing the candidates. But the best all-rounder?
That does not take any longer than the debate over the best batter; here we have to concede even in the presence of our Australian friends the supremacy of Don Bradman. The best all-rounder is universally agreed to be Garry Sobers. The other contender, WG Grace, lived so long ago that we are reduced to guesswork. So Sobers it is.
His batting was sublime. Bradman, after watching Sobers hit 254 for the Rest of the World against Australia in Melbourne in January 1972 concluded: “I believe his innings was probably the best ever seen in Australia.”
Meanwhile, Sobers’ bowling was exceptional in three different modes – initially an orthodox finger-spinner, he would soon add wrist-spin and pace bowling to his arsenal – and he was a brilliant fielder anywhere, but especially at short leg to the off-spinner Lance Gibbs.
The numbers hint at his brilliance. 8,032 runs at an average in excess of 57 and 235 wickets at 34 in 93 Test matches are phenomenal figures, if not absolutely decisive, but I think the old cliche – “He was never bothered about the stats” – really does apply to Sobers.
He was a cavalier in an era when there were so many roundheads on the international circuit. The great West Indies’ sides of his time not only won their fair share of games but they played with a joyous freedom rarely matched by their opponents and this was so often due to the presence of Sobers.
His century in the first innings of the famous tied Test in Brisbane in 1960 set the tone for that epic series. By the time he toured England for a second time in 1963, he was the lynchpin of Frank Worrell’s side. When he returned in 1966 as captain, his own staggering performances ensured not just victory, but victory with style and grace.
He made his Test debut aged 17 against England in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1954. He was selected as a spinner to replace the ill Alf Valentine and batted at No 9 – he never batted there again – and Trevor Bailey was his first victim.
This pair of very contrasting all-rounders became friends and in 1976 Bailey wrote a little biography of Sobers. Older Test Match Special listeners may recall that Bailey was not given to hyperbolic assessments of cricketers so it meant something when he said: “He [Sobers] has, quite simply, been the greatest of all time, the most complete all-rounder ever.”
Bailey, as ever, was succinct about the downsides as well. “He is not, and makes no claim to be, a paragon of virtue, which is as well because saints outside the Church are liable to be boring. He has many human frailties. These include a passion for gambling … a certain unreliability … and for a period he drank too heavily. However, these weaknesses fade into insignificance when considered against his extraordinary zest for living, his infectious laugh … and his absolute honesty in everything he says or does.”
My own relationship with Sobers was more distant. I watched him avidly on the television during West Indies’ tours of England in the 60s. Although still in shorts and right-handed, I would bowl left-handed, spin and pace, in the backyard, trying to mimic what I had been watching. In England that usually meant his fast bowling, over the wicket with that easy, languid action which generated pace and sharp swing without any apparent effort. He tormented the best, including Geoffrey Boycott.
By then Sobers was long established as a frontline batter even though it was not until his 17th Test match in 1958, again in Jamaica, that he reached three figures. Those figures were 3, 6 and 5, which meant he had surpassed Len Hutton’s record score in Test cricket. He hit 38 fours in that innings against Pakistan in Kingston and no sixes, an oddity for a man who would become the first player to hit six sixes in a first-class over at Swansea in 1968.
Sobers followed up his triple century with two more hundreds in the next Test in Guyana. He soon became the most mesmerising cricketer of his era. Like Viv Richards in the generation after him, his arrival at the crease alone was worth the entry money alone and a source of huge anticipation. With Richards there was the majesty of his swaggering strut to the middle, while Sobers arrived with his collar up in a slow, rolling, stiff-backed amble which belied his natural athleticism. In each case a treat was probably in store.
He captained West Indies for seven years from 1965, initially with great success, which was so often due to his own superlative performances. As he faded so did West Indies, until the advent of Clive Lloyd’s side.
He famously declared in 1968 in Trinidad leaving England, led by Colin Cowdrey, 215 to win in 165 minutes. The match was lost by seven wickets and there was something of a furore in the Caribbean but Sobers was unrepentant. “That series was so boring,” he said. “The first three Tests had been drawn. England were bowling something like 12 or 13 overs per hour. I was so fed up and this wasn’t what I thought of as cricket.”
Sobers could not abide such tedium – another reason why we loved him.
