Sir Garfield Sobers
Arguably the greatest cricketer of all time, former
West Indies all-rounder, Sir Garfield Sobers, was being interviewed live,
exclusively on CricInfo. We would like to extend our thanks to the
Northern California Cricket Association
for their co-operation in facilitating this interview.
Sir Gary was in the Bay Area
attending the Third Annual Kingfisher Cup
, hosted by the NCCA.
CricInfo: The World:
Sir Gary Sobers, we welcome you here today. Thank you for
giving of your time to answer questions from cricket lovers all over the world.
Maybe today will be your toughest innings yet, or we will get bowled out by
your answers. I trust and hope that you will enjoy your time with us.
Sir Gary: Hello, how are you all out there ?
Q: Sir Gary, maybe you can tell us what you are doing in
California, and the Bay area specifically?
Sir Gary:
Well, I was invited here by the NCCA to their banquet and also to
have a look at the cricket competition which is going on at the
present moment, and to open one of the matches that started
yesterday, and there's also a banquet on this evening which I'll
be at.. I'll probably be talking to some of the people there, and
the cricketers who are invited this evening. I believe they're
expecting some 250-300 people.
I remember last time I came here they had an evening and they
only had about 40 people, so this is really a big step up from 40
to 300 !
Q: [From Aqil Ahmed: USA]: What is it about cricket that makes it such
an exciting game, in your opinion?
Sir Gary: Well, I suppose cricket is a game which
you have to be born into to understand the difference and the
excitement of it. I don't think cricket is a game that people who
have never played or been involved an understand the excitement.
It's a game that is full of excitement because cricket lovers
follow the game, and understand the basic principles and rules.
They become connoisseurs of the game. For instance in
Test cricket, some people find it very boring when batsman are
finding it difficult to score runs quickly but the real
lovers of the game find it fascinating when theres a duel
between bat and ball. Thats one of the important things
especially at Test level. As we know in the
US, people can't understand how you can play for 5/6 days and end
up with a drawn game. But those in cricket playing countries can
understand that, particularly if the game is tight and being
played between two good teams, and they can understand the
tactics and strategies, and can enjoy the game.
Of course, one day cricket is always exciting, because there is
always something happening - there are wickets, runs, it is a
very fast moving game, and I think it's the kind of game that
will eventually take on in the US. As we know, they like fast
moving sports, and this is the game that really produces
entertainment. And this is how we should look at one day cricket
- it's a form of entertainment, rather than the form of cricket
which will develop skills
Q: [From Surender Visvanathan: Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia]:
I saw you play
in Madras in the late 60s,I think, when you were captain, and had
a young Clive Lloyd in your side. I had always been a fan, but
your 100 in the first and 94 not out in the second still remain
in my memory. Whilst you did everything on the cricket field
superbly, which did you enjoy the most? And whether you have a
chance to answer this or not, please accept a long-time fan's
admiration...you are still the best I have ever seen.
Sir Gary:
Well, you've really got me a bit stumped.. I don't remember the
60's and that particular game. I remember being the captain of
the West Indies in 1967-68 to India. I can't remember getting a
100 in that series. You might have been talking about another
series. That was a series I didn't really want to go on tour to
India - not for any other reason, but I had been playing a lot of
cricket. I had just joined Notts, I was playing in Australia, for
Barbados. I needed a rest. I was really getting a bit tired, and
being an all rounder, and taking over the captaincy, that was a
burden being added to everything I was doing. I thought it was a
good opportunity for me to have a break, and to give a
opportunity for a youngster to go out there and start to mould
his career I was glad I went in the end, it wasn't as easy as we
thought it might be. We had some very good matches, and I found
myself having to get 60/70 runs to save the West Indies from
defeat.
I don't remember getting a 100, I was batting lower down in the
order. It was one of those series where things didn't go too
well, and I was batting for hours to save the West Indies. That
particular test in Madras, I remember Charlie Griffith and myself
having to stay there to see of Chandra, who was the danger
bowler. I think Charlie and I batted for 60-70 minutes, because
there were only two to come, Wes Hall and Lance Gibbs. I hope Wes
doesn't pick this up, but I don't think Charlie had much confidence
in him... but I've always had lots of confidence in Wes!
Prasanna, who was a very slow off spinner, and he drew Charlie
down the wicket, and it turned, and struck him in the chest and
Charlie thought it was a chance to waste some time, and he
started to roll all up and down the pitch and the umpires came
up to him, and said "Charlie, it can't have been that hard" and
he said "Who got hit, you or me?"
and then spent some more minutes.I was delighted with
that, we got the draw, and saved us from defeat in that series...
Q: [From Shailesh Shukla: New York: USA]: How did you prepare yourself
before going in to bat? Any specific strategy?
Sir Gary:
Well not really, I was not a superstitious person. I can tell you
that I never really liked watching cricket. Even today, I find it
really difficult. I was never a spectator, always a participant.
In the early days when I first got into the WI team.. When the W's were playing, I would sit and watch, when you could
learn from watching players like that, it was a great joy to
watch them play
Later in my career, I found I could only sit and watch for the
first half hour or forty minutes, then I would take a rest and
lie down... and somebody would wake me up when something happened
I found it very relaxing.. in cricket there is a lot of psychology
in the game.. especially if you are watching people who are not
top class... you know it was always nice to watch the likes of
Conrad Hunte, Rohan Kanhai, Seymour Nurse... but other fellows,
you watch, and things are not going so well, it seems to work on
your nerves, you tend to look for things in the wicket which are
not really there. I always felt it was better to go in when I had
to judge for myself.. then you were looking and playing yourself
in, and you were playing to what you were receiving, and not to
what you thought was happening, and that made it easier... so
that was my only preparation if you could call it that... It is
true that it is useful to get the sunlight, it's not nice to sit
in a dark room, you should get accustomed to the light. When I lie
down, I would take a look up into the skies when I walked in, I
would get familiar with the light that way.. and then I would go
in and play the ball on its merit.. I didn't have the tension
you get from watching, and seeing things not going too right
Q: [From Jeevananda Abayasekara: Sydney: Australia]: How do you keep
your concentration going through long innings? Did you have any
special methods you used to keep your concentration going?
Sir Gary:
I think that most experienced players have some ways of keeping
their concentration, because over long innings, it's virtually
impossible for a whole day.. You have to find ways of breaking
your concentration at the right times. Early in my career, one of
the ways of keeping concentration through long innings was when
the bowler was bowling you concentrate, as soon as it goes to the
keeper and the bowler is walking back to his mark, that is the
time a batsman should relax, that's when you find a lot of players
are concerned about a ball that's beaten them, and they'll stand
there thinking about it and by the time the bowler turns to bowl
again, they're still thinking about it and then they find when the
bowler starts to run up, that's when their concentration lapses.
For me, as long as i wasn't out, I never thought about it after
that I would rest, or walk down the wicket and "garden".. there
was nothing wrong with the wicket, you see it so often, and it
helps batsmen to relax, and keep their concentration.. You take
your mind off the bowler only when he turns round and starts to
bowl, then you put on your thinking cap again, you must always
have that relaxing period where there's nothing happening you
must forget about what's gone. That's what I used to do to keep
my concentration over a period of time.
Q: [From John Clark: Melbourne: Australia]: When Lara got his 375, you
stated that he was "the only batsman who plays the game today in
the way it should be played." Would you still hold to that
statement?
Sir Gary:
Well, it was either going to be Lara or Tendulkar.. and I hadn't
seen Tendulkar at that time, I had seen Brian Lara.. if anyone
was going to do it, it looked like it would be him.. I also
remember mentioning Tendulkar in that same breath. To break the
record for number of runs, it will take somebody in modern
cricket to be really a quick scorer. Today, cricket is played in
such a way that batsmen don't really have the amount of time to
go in there to get those kind of runs without the captain
declaring, because it's going to affect the teams chances of
winning. Brian when I first saw him, he was a little strip of a
boy, at the age of 16 when he first came to play in Barbados in
the Sir Gary Sobers international schoolboy competition. He
couldn't get the ball off the square, but you could see that he
loved batting and wasn't going to give his wicket away. The
following year, he came for a similar tournament, and you could
see right away that his development was so quick, and he became a
lot stronger, and was hitting with more power, and his placements
were good. He could pick his spot, bisect the gaps, and you knew
that he was that type of player, once he got going on a good
wicket, you knew he was capable of dong that, he has the ability
to score quickly. So it was no surprise when he did.
Q: [From Francis Ingledew: Teaneck, NJ, USA]:
I've watched the video of
the Tied Test with Australia in '60/61, where Sir Garfield scored
a tremendous century. I was moved by the video, because it seemed
to record great deeds from long ago (actually, it made me sad, as
if for something lost). I would like to know what EMOTIONS Sir
Gary feels when he watches or watched this video, or other videos
of his great performances.
Sir Gary:
Well really, truly, I hardly watch any videos of myself.. I am
not too wrapped up in myself. I leave that for other people.. I
think that's one of the reasons I maintain the person I am today,
because I don't watch myself, like some people do. I think it's
always a bad thing for top class cricketers, or cricketers of
great repute to get wrapped up in watching themselves over and
over. I might watch every now and again with my sons, if they have
the video, I might sit down and watch and crack a joke with them,
since they never really saw me play but I prefer to watch some
kind of a Western or other movie, or look at golf videos, rather
than watch cricket videos of myself.
FAQ: Can you tell us a bit about what your thoughts were
as you hit those famous six sixes (nearly 30 years ago to the
day) in an over off Malcolm Nash's bowling?
Sir Gary:
One of the things about the six sixes which really comes over me
every time somebody asks a question, or says to me I've just seen
them, or people always ask me about it.. It makes me feel that's
the only thing I've ever done in the history of cricket. It wasn't
really good cricket.. 6 6's are not good cricket, it was an
occasion where we were looking for quick runs.. It was a team
occasion, looking for quick runs, and the idea was to try and get
as many runs as possible. There were two versions of how to get
quick runs.. The Everton Weekes version and the Lord Constantine
version. Lord Constantine said you should hit the ball in the air,
because there are no fielders there to catch it, but you have to
be sure to hit it over the boundary line. Everton Weekes said if
you keep the ball on the ground, then nobody can catch you. On
that occasion I chose the Lord Constantine version, since my
wicket was not an issue, I decided I was trying to hit it in the
air, and take the risks. It was only about the 5th six that I
thought, here's something that hasn't been done, why not try it.
Records have never meant a lot to me, if I have ever broken
records, they have come in the stride of my duty to my team.. If
you look in my career, you will find that most of the records, we
won the matches, it wasn't a draw it was never a situation where
we decided, I want to score 365 runs at all costs, or go and hit
6 sixes regardless, those thoughts never go into my mind. Always
it goes into my mind that the team needs quick runs, you have to
make them as fast as possible, getting out didn't matter.. I was
captain, we had to get a lot of runs.. the score was 270-300 and
I decided I'd have to take the chances to get them. Obviously
I knew for the last ball he would change his action, he wouldn't
bowl the last one slow, he was going to try and prevent me from
hitting him for six sixes, he knew his name would be on the wrong
end of the world record. I decided wherever the ball was bowled,
I would go after it, I wasn't going to let it be a wide. Luckily
for me, he dropped it short, and there was a short boundary on
the leg side, and as soon as it hit the middle of the bat, it was
all over but six sixes is not good cricket, it's not the kind of
cricket that you want to teach youngsters!
Q: [From Harikrishnan: Madras:India
]:
In 1968 at Queen's Park Oval,
in the match against Cowdrey's England side, you as skipper of
the WI, made what I have always considered a "sporting
declaration". You may recall that WI then lost the game :-), and
ever since it has become notoriously known as a "bone-head"
declaration. Have you ever had second thoughts about it, and
would you do it again in similar circumstances, given the
opportunity?
Sir Gary:
I declared to give England 216 runs to win - they needed to score
216 in about 3 hours, and England had not scored during that
whole series at more than 40 runs per hour. It was a decision that
was made according to the conditions of the wicket, and according
to the composition of the team and it was well thought out, it
wasn't one of those blindly made decisions. It was discussed
amongst the members of the team and the manager before the
decision was made.
I knew after the decision was made and the
match was lost, a lot of members of the team said they knew
nothing about it, but they were strangers to the truth, because I
had asked the question about 15 minutes before I made the
declaration and as a matter of fact, some of the feedback I got
was that I could have declared half an hour earlier! I know a lot
of people will not believe it, because this is probably one of
the first times that I'm putting it down, but I thought that the
time it was my responsibility, and it was my decision but as I
said, it was a decision according to the conditions of the
wicket, looking at the strategy of the England team during that
whole series, and what we had done in the first innings.
If one
can recall.. one of the things is that all the facts were
removed from all the articles that were written, for what unknown
reason I don't know... during that Test, Basil Butcher in the
first innings got 6 wickets and he wasn't a recognized spinner in
the WI team, and there was criticism for why Hall and Griffith
were not playing.. one was in the team but not fit... Basil had
got 6 in the first innings, and we had bowlers like Billy
Rodriguez, myself and Lance Gibbs. I didn't see it necessary to
have a fast bowler to force a win on a wicket taking spin and we
needed to get in as many overs as possible to put England under
pressure. It was at least calculated from that point of view...
Anyone in the press who knew anything about cricket would have
seen it that way without making criticisms.. I knew there were
other reasons, which I will not talk about on this particular
occasion, but certainly if I had to make a similar decision
again, I would do exactly a similar thing.
Q: [From Aditya Basrur: Auckland: New Zealand]: Who were your cricketing
idols when you grew up?
Sir Gary:
As a boy really, even then I never used to watch much cricket.. I
used to play a lot of cricket, and most of my time was consumed in
playing with my friends. I never really got much to Kensington
Oval.. I used to watch a lot where I learned my cricket - I used
to score on the scoreboard to get the odd shilling to spend on a
Saturday.That gave me an opportunity to see a lot of great
players like Sir Everton, Sir Clyde, the Atkinson brothers, the
late Sir Frank Worrell.. There were lots of good players in those
days - so many whom people outside have never heard of. Also George
Carew.. I had the opportunities of seeing those players and
others top Barbadian players who were never given the chance to
play for the West Indies. If they were around today, they would
be top class players in WI cricket but back then Barbados cricket
was so strong, it was very difficult for people of even the
highest class to get into the Barbados team.
When I got a bit
further on with my cricket, Sir Everton Weekes became my idol, he
was one of those players who played shots, I always admired
people who played shots.. He was to me the greatest batsman the
West Indies has ever produced, one of the greatest the world has
ever produced.. I was very fortunate to play with him. Sir Frank
and I, we lived in the same area when I went to play my first
league season in Radcliffe as a youngster, he used to invite me
round, and we used to talk a lot, we became very very close.. We
used to discuss cricket and other things - he was like a father
figure to me
Q: [From Dave Liverman, Newfoundland, Canada and Jeff
Green, London, UK]: We were both fortunate enough to be at
the Oval in 1970 to watch you batting with Graeme Pollock - you
both made centuries in a wonderful exhibition of batting. We'd
like to ask you about your memories of that innings, and your
impressions of Pollock as a bat.
Sir Gary:
Well let me first say, it is probably one of the great pities of
the cricketing world that people who love cricket have never had
the opportunity of really seeing Graeme Pollock play at the
highest level for too long. He was certainly a player with great
potential.. we can only call it that, because he didn't play Test
cricket long enough to be called a great player, and greatness is
always recognized at the highest level. I think that those who
have seen him even after South Africa was banned for all those
years and he played against some of the rebel teams.. and I know
I can speak on the behalf of some of the West Indians who went
there late in his career, and how they thought of him. They
thought he was a great player, a very very great player then, and
by that time, I think a lot of his youth was gone.. He was
getting older, and it was a pity that they didn't see him in
those years... He certainly would have fulfilled that great
promise. I was fortunate to have the chance to play against him in
1963 in Australia, when I played for South Australia when they
brought a strong team down there, and beat Australia in that
series and then later on I had the pleasure of captaining him in
that RoW series.
It was a great privilege to play with him, and
bat at the other end, particularly in that series against England
in 1970. He started off during that series and wasn't really in
very good nick, and I think that was the last Test match of the
5, and he really played magnificently. I think all those who saw
the innings would remember them.. I don't think there was any
more beautiful sight than to see Graeme Pollock in full flight. He
was a tremendous timer of the ball, and played in the V.. a short
backlift, but tremendous power. I think a lot of the power came from the heavy
bat he brought into cricket. I think after him a lot of players,
Lloyd and Botham and others started using heavier bats.. from 2
lbs 2, or 2lbs 4, to 3 lbs and more, and today they have even
heavier bats which is good for playing in the V, but not very
good for cutting and hooking. A batsman with that weight in his
hand won't be able to lift the bat to cut and hook. At the end of
the day if you're waving a bat like that round all day against
Hall, Griffith, Holding and Roberts and the like, it becomes very
heavy...
Q: [From the moderator, Keith]: we know you are in a rush,
but what was your greatest moment, memory of your cricket career?
Sir Gary:
That's not an easy one... when you play cricket for 20 years at
the top level, and you play in so many parts of the world against
so many good teams, bowlers and batsmen, it's very difficult to
pick out one particular innings or situation! People talk of the
254 in Australia.. that was certainly a top class innings against
probably the quickest bowler in the world at the time and one of
the best spin bowlers. The situation presented itself, a good
innings was called for at that time, and I was fortunate to
produce that innings. Sir Donald Bradman rated it as one of the
best innings on Australian soil, and that's a high rating but Sir
Donald is a very good friend of mine, and he says good things
about me, so don't take it too seriously! But he was one of
the greatest batsmen who ever lived, and he has seen a lot of
cricket, so there was nobody better to judge that innings.
From a
team point of view though, my innings at Lords with my cousin
David Holford was probably one of the biggest highlights of my
career because of the tension, the status of the match, country
vs country was also far more important than the RoW vs a
country.. There is a lot more at stake - we were in a position in
which we had lost all of our top players, here was a young man
playing his first or second match in England, at Lord's of all
places, which wouldn't make it too easy.. and to be able to pull
ourselves out of that situation. I think we were in a situation
in which we led by 87 on first innings and we had lost 5 wickets
for 95 so we led by just 7 runs, with 5 wicket in hand, so the
pressure must have been horrendous on him. To be able to bat
out the rest of that day without losing a wicket, coming back
next day and batting on, being able to declare without losing
another wicket and giving England over 270-odd runs to win....
For
some time early in that innings we had England in trouble, until
Colin Milburn and Tom Graveney pulled it around until the rain
came down so to me, that was my greatest innings because of the
circumstances it called for. Everything, your concentration had to
be right, your approach.. you had to have a plan, you couldn't do
it otherwise. I went out there with a plan, and I was able to
fulfill that, and everything that I wanted to do came off and
that's what made that innings to me the most important, and
probably the biggest highlight of my career.
Sir Gary has to leave us so as he departs, we'd like to simply thank
him for the unmeasurable pleasure he brought to those
who saw him, in the unassuming way he played the game and in his incredible
gifts. Also thank you, Sir Gary, for the time you have set aside to be with us
today. We received over 1000 questions via e-mail, and hope all will understand
that there was just not enough time to answer them all.
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