Famous Cricketers No 42 - Gary Sobers

GARFIELD ST. AUBRUN SOBERS Garfield St. Aubrun Sobers began his life in humble circumstances on 28 July 1936 in the village of the Bay Land, St. Michael, Barbados. He was the fifth of six children who lost their father at an early age. The latter, a merchant seaman, perished on 11 January 1942, when the Lady Drake was torpedoed by a German submarine during the Second World War. The children then had to be reared by Mrs. Thelma Sobers, a remarkable individual, who slaved unselfishly to make sure that they were properly clothed and fed, and that they attended church and school with regularity. They became attached to St. Paul’s Church, an Anglican institution, in St. Michael; and while the four boys attended the Bay Street Boys’ School, the two girls (Greta and Elise) were pupils at the St. Mathias Girls’ School. The Sobers boys were excellent athletes. The eldest, George, was a promising footballer who entered Combermere (the oldest secondary school in the former British colonial Empire) in 1943 but shortly abandoned his studies and his sports to help support his siblings. Notwithstanding his father’s tragedy and his mother’s advice, be became a seaman in his teens. Gary, Gerald and Cecil remained in Barbados and played all manner of games with unusual proficiency. They were exceptional cricketers and footballers. Gerald was good enough as a right-handed wicketkeeper/batsman to be invited to the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) trials several times during the early 1950s. He later played as a semi-professional for Norton in the North Staffordshire and South Cheshire League. Cecil was a superb close-to-the-wicket fieldsman who represented Spartan, a famous Barbados sports club, during the 1960s. Gary, of course, was destined to go much further as a cricketer but is still remembered as one of the finest footballers and basketball players in Barbados during his youth. On the soccer field, he displayed the kind of versatility that would later become the hallmark of his cricket. He could keep goal better than any of his countrymen and was a fine left-winger in the bargain. Garfield is the only sportsman ever to represent his native island in three separate disciplines while still a teenager and was good enough, in his middle years, to pose as one of the leading golfers in Barbados also. Even before he was ten years old, Gary Sobers was one of the athletic stars at the Bay Street Boys’ School. He and Gerald, on one memorable occasion in 1946, defeated Bay Street’s arch rivals, St. Mathias Boys’, without much help from their colleagues. They bowled out the opponents for next to nothing in both innings and shared an unbeaten first wicket stand of more than 100. The ‘Chinese Twins’, as Gary and Gerald were then called, were by far the finest elementary school cricketers in the colony at that time. No one could fail to discern their considerable promise. They could bat, bowl and field extremely well. They honed their skills at the ‘Bay Pasture’, then the headquarters of the Wanderers Cricket Club, the most prestigious of the Barbadian élite (white) clubs. Although they had no hope of joining Wanderers, they bowled to the Marshalls and the Atkinsons in the nets, helped the groundsmen prepare the pitch during the week, and controlled the scoreboard on Saturdays. Using tar balls, tennis balls and make-shift bats, they played every day on this field with the encouragement of Grandison Briggs, the chief groundsman, who often arranged ‘Bendwee Test matches’ between Bay Land Boys and youngsters from the neighbouring villages. By the time Gary was 12 or 13, he was good enough to play in the Barbados Cricket League (BCL) as a dangerous left-arm spinner and a graceful left-handed batsman. He was encouraged to play for Kent, a country side, by Garnet Ashby a close friend of the family. It did not take long for Sobers to establish himself as the best spin-bowler in this competition. In his very first year (1949-50), he twice embarrassed Sussex, one of the most powerful clubs in the league with figures of 6/20 and 8/17 and could represent the BCL in its annual match against the BCA at Kensington Oval in 1950 before he had reached the age of 14. His potential as an all-rounder was much appreciated by Captain Wilfred Farmer, then the island’s Commissioner of Police, who had recently established the Police Boys’ Club in an effort to keep wayward youth out of trouble with the law. Farmer twisted the rules slightly to allow Sobers, as a member of this club, to represent Police in the regular BCA First Division 5