Never before has there been an all-rounder such as Garry Sobers, and never again is it likely that one will appear. In 2000, Wisden named Sobers as one of the five cricketers of the last century, but that is far too simplistic, a statement of the obvious. From his first appearance on the international scene, in 1954, as a 17-year-old, until his retirement two decades later, by which time the rigorous demands of his bowling action had severely damaged his knees, Sobers, who has died aged 89, was the complete cricket machine: his versatility unique, his style and panache unsurpassed, and his exuberance contagious to those who watched. None of the other acclaimed all-rounders, from WG Grace and Wilfred Rhodes through to the great multi-dimensional cricketers of the 70s and 80s – Tony Greig, Ian Botham, Imran Khan, Kapil Dev, Richard Hadlee and Mike Procter – and on to Andrew Flintoff, Jacques Kallis and Ben Stokes, of the modern era, could match the package of supreme skills that Sobers displayed.
As a left-handed batsman, he was the finest the game has seen, sufficient credential alone to enter him into the Wisden pantheon. Other left-handers will have claims made on their behalf: the South African Graeme Pollock and Brian Lara of the West Indies at the head of the list, with Neil Harvey, the Australian, and even Frank Woolley, say some who saw him, as an undercard. But Pollock was suspect against good spin and had a Test career curtailed by his country’s banishment, while the brilliant Lara, Sobers’s protege, who was to break his 1958 world record Test score of 365 not out, had trouble coping with aggressive short-pitched bowling.
