Garfield Sobers - all rounder par excellence

Dilwin Mendis - Moratuwa Sports Correspondent

Garfield Sobers was God's gift to cricket. There was no other cricketer like him before and there would be no one after him.

Those have not had an opportunity to see Don Bradman in action feel deprived of something legendary. Those who have not seen Sobers in action will feel the same way in the years to come.

I had the rare opportunity to witness this great all-rounder when he played in 1962 and 1967 in Colombo.

Sobers was the most complete cricketer ever in every sense. He had the greatest flair as a cricketer and the soundest of technique. He could do anything. Bat, Bowl Fast and Slow Spin and Field at any position. He is a man in three ways.

Bowlers who have not bowled at him would not know how great a batsman he was and the batsmen who have not faced him would not know how great a bowler he was. As far as close in catching goes you had to be there to believe it.

Sobers was a good Table Tennis player during his small days. During our smaller days our cricket coaches encouraged us to play Table Tennis to get the eye at the ball. I can remember former Cambrian and Test Cricketer D S de Silva was a fine Table Tennis player while at school. Sobers was a fine Soccer goal keeper and top class golf player. He also has a great love on horses and horse racing. It is said that during the test matches he never forgot to bet on horses during intervals.

Cricket and merry making is a way of life in Barbados, West Indies. Going to the clubs and pubs and dancing was a common thing even to the cricketers. When Sobers walks into a pub and sit on a stool in front of the Bar counter to sip a Beer girls use to swarmed around him which irked his team mates.

When bowling he did every thing he could seam Spin York, Swing and Bounce. He bowled left arm orthodox spin and the Chinamon. The best thing is he could do all at will. He batted gracefully and smote the ball harder with brilliant timing. He was also a very fine fielder at any position with a very good arm. It is a fact that he could not like to remain in idle and hated himself if he was not bowling. Now a days one does not come across a cricketer with such an attitude. He always maintained his cool while bowling.

As a batsman he believed hitting fours rather than taking singles. He had the ability to strike the ball on the up. It is easy to cut or hook but driving in front too made it look easy. Such was his command and control.

There is no one to match his credentials. Sobers like to bat at number six. He had all the ability to go higher up and score runs. But his answer was if he can get centuries at number six after bowling long stints.

Thousands and thousands all over the world had written and talked about his batsmanship.

A superb athlete he could do anything with grace and authority in the field.

He had so much time at his disposal and variety of strokes. He was a batsman who could play to a plan and kill.

He lost his best friend Collie Smith and according to Sobers he is a great guy and top cricketer and could have been easily one of the world's greatest all-rounders. Smith died in England and Sobers was at the helm of the car and he and Tom Dwedney escaped unhurt.

Sobers always believed a captain is man who has got to do what he thinks is best at the time. He has got to see the game the way that he thinks it should go and not the way other people would have look to it. He was once criticized for losing a Test Match and the series. He gave 155 minutes to make 215 when England achieved. He believed Cricket match should be interesting till the very end. Today we play limited over matches and it is interesting from the start to finish unlike the test matches. It is proved beyond doubt that a test match is boring nowadays and there is crowd pulling for one Dayers. He was a class of his own. Most of the time he use to come out and play from the crease. It says that power and wealth of timing and superb cat like reflexes. His incredible ball sense made the bowlers their job miserable.

"Once a poet wrote that poems are made of fools like me but only God can make a tree," Garfield Sobers is a God's own chosen creation for the enrichment of cricket and enjoyment of its countless votaries. His walking to the field is a nicer sight in cricket with jaunty steps, collar upturned, full sleeves rolled up to elbows. Stopping the ball or snapping up catches the joyous jinks and innocent sorcery on the field of mere site for the Gods. Anyone can call the muses to capture the astonishing spectrum of his on field personality. In many times the helpless opposing bowlers be the Englishmen, Ausies great spinners from India and Pakistan or Kiwis hung like a white curtain, while the brown fame at the other end and danced a rhapsods of none sequitors. His bating brilliance combined itself a Bradmansque record with a Hammond like classicism.

His record partnership with his cousin David Holford against England in 1966 and to silence his critics how he clobbered a faultless 254 for the Rest of the World team against Australians Lillee and Thomson in 1971.

Sobers was born not so well to a family which is immaterial but he grew up with the game. He earned riches playing this noble game with great talent and virtuosity and he has equally enriched it as few have done in the history of cricket. His amazing performances go into the hearts of cricket lovers. It is believed mat he is now suffering from arthritis and age which says it is a punishment given for a non committed offence. He had to face it and even a cricket immortal has to bow to the laws of life. His glorious cricket career ended but his presence still inspires and young cricketers warms the hearts of the other older of cricket lovers in every clime.

On February 1975 he was honoured in his home town in Barbados with a Knighthood from Queen Elizabeth herself. On that day cricketing fraternity would have joined the Queen in fondly wishing and urging the new Cricketing Knight to keep helping sustain the game's spirit and image which he did in his key day by example.

Sobers is a true friend of Sri Lankans. He helped us when we got the Test Status.

What Shakespeare said of Brutus the Cricketing Fraternity would say of his noble cricket personality who was not only one of the greatest cricketers but also one of the finest sports, "Here was the one when comes another. He is a God's Gift to Cricket.

We saw West Indies producing three W's, Weekes, Worrel and Walcott. If Collie Smith lived we would have seen two S's Sobers and Smith.