Post by Admin on Aug 18, 2018 17:58:14 GMT
www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/jul/28/sir-garfield-sobers-batsman-west-indies-80th-birthday
Sir Garfield Sobers: If you could watch only one batsman, it would be him
by Mike Selvey
The West Indies legend, celebrating his 80th birthday, had a presence only the great actors possess. The manner in which he changed matches was astonishing
Sir Garfield Sobers was described by Geoffrey Boycott as the finest batsman he had played against or watched. Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian
Monday 18 April 1994. We are sitting in the open-air press box in the ramshackle Recreation Ground in Antigua, watching as a young man rocks on to his back foot, swivels on his left leg and pulls a short delivery from the England bowler Chris Lewis towards the twin bell towers of the Anglican cathedral of St John beyond square leg. The crowd noise is cacophonous, the scoreboard operators tick up four more runs on the old board, and Brian Lara has broken a record that has stood for 36 years.
Lara bends and kisses the turf and then, from the dressing room, emerges an entourage surrounding a distinctive, white-haired eminence, who makes his way slowly to the middle to embrace the batsman. From a distance it might have been Nelson Mandela.
Sir Garfield St Aubrun Sobers reached the middle and embraced Lara. At Sabina Park in 1958 against Pakistan, Sobers, 21 years old and without a Test hundred before that match, had himself surpassed the record 364 of Len Hutton, made in 1938. Now he had wanted to be in Antigua to see the record broken by another West Indies genius, and a left-hander at that. That day he handed on the baton.
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Sobers turns 80 on July 28 , and a couple of days ago I took part in a radio programme on Radio 5 Live to celebrate it. There was an interview with Sobers himself, ailing now but articulate in talking about life, times and that innings; Michael Parkinson was in raptures and so too Sir Ian Botham, someone similarly not lacking in a lifestyle that would fell an ox and who, curiously, made his Test debut on Sobers’ 41st birthday (something in the stars perhaps).
I was most struck, though, listening to Geoffrey Boycott, who played against him on numerous occasions. Some years ago, when Lara was still in his pomp, I asked Geoffrey which of the three great left-handers of the modern era was the best. By this – with apologies to such as Allan Border, Matthew Hayden, and Kumar Sangakkara, who came later anyway – I meant Lara, Graeme Pollock, who averaged 60.97 during a relatively brief 23-Test career, and Sobers. Geoffrey was unequivocal. Lara, he felt, was vulnerable to pace early on in an innings, a little jumpy, and at times exposed his leg stump. As for Pollock, he could be brutal but was certainly less certain when confronted with quality spin. But Sobers, well, he had it all. Garry, said Geoffrey, was the best.
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In the radio interview he went further, declaring unequivocally that Sobers was not just the best left-hander he had seen, nor even the best all-rounder, although he had no hesitation in endorsing that view, but the best batsman he has played against or watched. Sobers could play on good pitches and bad – off back foot primarily but ferociously off the front foot too – with the high backlift and blurring bat speed that characterised Lara decades later, as if wielding a wafer.
He was, quite possibly, the best hooker the game has produced with a rare ability to stand tall and hit from high to low rather than low to high – down and in control instead of up – so that the idea that he might be snared into a trap on the boundary was a futile one.
The great actors make an entrance that others cannot. They have a presence and so it is with batsmen. We have seen it with Sir Vivian Richards who would keep a bowler waiting long enough to remember who it was that was coming next: Boycott recognised it with Sobers, an unmistakable lithe, sleek predator, collar up, distinctive sinewy athletic walk.
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I bowled to him on half a dozen occasions, and the first time remembered at the wrong time that far from being over the hill at 36 he was only five months on from destroying Dennis Lillee in what Don Bradman described as the finest innings he saw played in Australia. Like they said of the imminent prospect of the hangman, it concentrated the mind.
I did get him out, though, twice in an over as it happened, although the records won’t show that. The first was one of those lobbed leading edge return catches involving a dive and the ball landing on the top joint of my middle finger: a clean catch but one against which the umpire ruled then and DRS would query now. Two balls later, and considerably more satisfyingly, he was plumb in front. “Well bowled, young man,” he said as he walked past, “but you didn’t catch that.” For no reason, I nonetheless felt sheepish. Probably these days he would have been given a sendoff.
The all-rounder debate, the Sobers v Kallis one, is sure to be ignited, much of it old hat now and done to death but let me offer this. It is simplistic just to offer the statistics of Jacques Kallis as evidence alone that not only was he by far and away the best all-rounder of his generation but the finest of them all. Indisputably, Kallis was a supreme Test cricketer, not just remarkable for his weight of runs and the number of wickets, but for his endurance.
Those who had never seen Sobers play may query how anyone could play the game with greater all-round efficiency than Kallis but then only those who have seen Sobers as well can truly make that judgment. It is not just about the sheer versatility of Sobers (I would argue that statistically the fact he bowled a fair amount of pretty ordinary spin is to the detriment of his bowling stats: he was a world-class left-arm pace bowler), but the manner in which he changed matches. And charisma. And star quality.
So here is an acid test: all other things being equal and given the opportunity to watch one or the other, who would it be? Hand on heart? I know where my money would go.
Sir Garfield Sobers: If you could watch only one batsman, it would be him
by Mike Selvey
The West Indies legend, celebrating his 80th birthday, had a presence only the great actors possess. The manner in which he changed matches was astonishing
Sir Garfield Sobers was described by Geoffrey Boycott as the finest batsman he had played against or watched. Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian
Monday 18 April 1994. We are sitting in the open-air press box in the ramshackle Recreation Ground in Antigua, watching as a young man rocks on to his back foot, swivels on his left leg and pulls a short delivery from the England bowler Chris Lewis towards the twin bell towers of the Anglican cathedral of St John beyond square leg. The crowd noise is cacophonous, the scoreboard operators tick up four more runs on the old board, and Brian Lara has broken a record that has stood for 36 years.
Lara bends and kisses the turf and then, from the dressing room, emerges an entourage surrounding a distinctive, white-haired eminence, who makes his way slowly to the middle to embrace the batsman. From a distance it might have been Nelson Mandela.
Sir Garfield St Aubrun Sobers reached the middle and embraced Lara. At Sabina Park in 1958 against Pakistan, Sobers, 21 years old and without a Test hundred before that match, had himself surpassed the record 364 of Len Hutton, made in 1938. Now he had wanted to be in Antigua to see the record broken by another West Indies genius, and a left-hander at that. That day he handed on the baton.
Joe Root sets new England standards and the best may be yet to come
Mike Selvey
Mike Selvey
Read more
Sobers turns 80 on July 28 , and a couple of days ago I took part in a radio programme on Radio 5 Live to celebrate it. There was an interview with Sobers himself, ailing now but articulate in talking about life, times and that innings; Michael Parkinson was in raptures and so too Sir Ian Botham, someone similarly not lacking in a lifestyle that would fell an ox and who, curiously, made his Test debut on Sobers’ 41st birthday (something in the stars perhaps).
I was most struck, though, listening to Geoffrey Boycott, who played against him on numerous occasions. Some years ago, when Lara was still in his pomp, I asked Geoffrey which of the three great left-handers of the modern era was the best. By this – with apologies to such as Allan Border, Matthew Hayden, and Kumar Sangakkara, who came later anyway – I meant Lara, Graeme Pollock, who averaged 60.97 during a relatively brief 23-Test career, and Sobers. Geoffrey was unequivocal. Lara, he felt, was vulnerable to pace early on in an innings, a little jumpy, and at times exposed his leg stump. As for Pollock, he could be brutal but was certainly less certain when confronted with quality spin. But Sobers, well, he had it all. Garry, said Geoffrey, was the best.
Advertisement
In the radio interview he went further, declaring unequivocally that Sobers was not just the best left-hander he had seen, nor even the best all-rounder, although he had no hesitation in endorsing that view, but the best batsman he has played against or watched. Sobers could play on good pitches and bad – off back foot primarily but ferociously off the front foot too – with the high backlift and blurring bat speed that characterised Lara decades later, as if wielding a wafer.
He was, quite possibly, the best hooker the game has produced with a rare ability to stand tall and hit from high to low rather than low to high – down and in control instead of up – so that the idea that he might be snared into a trap on the boundary was a futile one.
The great actors make an entrance that others cannot. They have a presence and so it is with batsmen. We have seen it with Sir Vivian Richards who would keep a bowler waiting long enough to remember who it was that was coming next: Boycott recognised it with Sobers, an unmistakable lithe, sleek predator, collar up, distinctive sinewy athletic walk.
Sign up to the Spin – our weekly cricket round-up
Read more
I bowled to him on half a dozen occasions, and the first time remembered at the wrong time that far from being over the hill at 36 he was only five months on from destroying Dennis Lillee in what Don Bradman described as the finest innings he saw played in Australia. Like they said of the imminent prospect of the hangman, it concentrated the mind.
I did get him out, though, twice in an over as it happened, although the records won’t show that. The first was one of those lobbed leading edge return catches involving a dive and the ball landing on the top joint of my middle finger: a clean catch but one against which the umpire ruled then and DRS would query now. Two balls later, and considerably more satisfyingly, he was plumb in front. “Well bowled, young man,” he said as he walked past, “but you didn’t catch that.” For no reason, I nonetheless felt sheepish. Probably these days he would have been given a sendoff.
The all-rounder debate, the Sobers v Kallis one, is sure to be ignited, much of it old hat now and done to death but let me offer this. It is simplistic just to offer the statistics of Jacques Kallis as evidence alone that not only was he by far and away the best all-rounder of his generation but the finest of them all. Indisputably, Kallis was a supreme Test cricketer, not just remarkable for his weight of runs and the number of wickets, but for his endurance.
Those who had never seen Sobers play may query how anyone could play the game with greater all-round efficiency than Kallis but then only those who have seen Sobers as well can truly make that judgment. It is not just about the sheer versatility of Sobers (I would argue that statistically the fact he bowled a fair amount of pretty ordinary spin is to the detriment of his bowling stats: he was a world-class left-arm pace bowler), but the manner in which he changed matches. And charisma. And star quality.
So here is an acid test: all other things being equal and given the opportunity to watch one or the other, who would it be? Hand on heart? I know where my money would go.