Former West Indies captain Sir Garfield ‘Garry’ Sobers has died at the age of 89.
Sobers was West Indies captain for seven years between 1965-72, and holds the record for the fourth-highest individual Test innings with a score of 365 not out against Pakistan at the age of 23.
He hit six sixes in an over for Nottinghamshire in the County Championship, whilst amassing over 7,041 first-class runs, including 18 centuries, and also took 281 wickets.
“Nottinghamshire are extremely saddened to hear of the passing of Sir Garfield Sobers, at the age of 89,” a statement from the club read.
Barbados-born Sobers, widely regarded as one of the finest to ever play the game, played for the West Indies for 20 years, making both his first and last Test appearances in 1954 and 1974 respectively against England, with the ICC’s award for leading men’s player of the year named the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy in his honour.
A statement on Windies Cricket’s official X account simply said: “A great innings has come to an end. In our hearts, now and forever, Sir Garfield Sobers.”
From Barbados to Test debut aged 17
Born on July 28, 1936 in Bridgetown as the fifth of six children to Shamont and Thelma Sobers, his father died in action during the Second World War in 1942 when his son was just five years old.
Sobers was the owner of an extra finger on each hand at birth, soon removed and no detriment to his burgeoning cricket career.
It was his left-arm bowling which initially predominated over the left-hand batting for which he would ultimately become most renowned.
On his first-class debut as a spinner at just 16 for Barbados against the Indian tourists, he duly excelled with a seven-wicket match haul.
Garry Sobers was West Indies captain between 1965-72
He was to play just one more first-class match, a year later as a No 5 batsman against MCC, before he was picked to face England in the final Test in Jamaica in March 1954, taking four first-innings wickets as a replacement for the poorly Alf Valentine in a heavy defeat.
It was in the following year that he began to show the world his capabilities as a batsman when, pressed into service as an emergency opener ahead of the Windies’ renowned middle-order trio Frank Worrell, Everton Weekes and Clyde Walcott, he dispatched Australia great Keith Miller for a string of early boundaries.
How ‘King Cricket’ broke records around the world
Sir Garfield Sobers (left) was present to witness Brian Lara (right) surpass his 365 not out against England in Antigua in 1994
After steadier progression came that remarkable, unbeaten 365 as Sobers’ maiden Test century rewrote the record books.
It was an individual score to supersede Len Hutton’s 364 at The Oval 20 years earlier and would stand unopposed until another Windies world-beater, Brian Lara, raised the stakes again in the 1990s and 2000s.
There were no sixes in 21-year-old Sobers’ triple century, the first of 26 hundreds in a 20-year Test career which would bring him an average of 57.78 as well as 235 wickets at 34.03.
Before his knighthood was accorded in 1975, or he was named National Hero of Barbados in 1998, he had earned universal acclaim, including as captain of his country for seven years from 1965, which encompassed a summer as ‘King Cricket’ with an average above 100 in a series win in England in 1966.
Master batsman of an earlier age, Don Bradman, brokered Sobers’ successful stint with South Australia and was then among those moved to high praise for his 254 at the MCG as captain of the Rest of the World against the hosts in the Supertest series of 1971.
By then, Sobers had already made sure of further folklore – specifically to the people of Wales and Nottinghamshire, in his first of seven county seasons – thanks to his brutal feat of six sixes in an over on the August Bank Holiday of 1968.
The profile of his then unprecedented achievement was helped by the chance presence of BBC cameras and tales have abounded since of how far the final six was smashed out of the St Helen’s ground in Swansea off the unfortunate bowling of Glamorgan seamer Malcolm Nash.
Sobers, who married Australian Pru Kirby in 1969 but divorced in 1990, leaves two sons, Matthew and Daniel, and an adopted daughter Genevieve.
