As Sir Garfield Sobers celebrates his 80th birthday today, mid-day.com tells you more about the man and his cricket
Sir Garfield Sobers
When Rest of the World captain Garry Sobers walked back to the pavilion after smashing an Australian attack aided by Dennis Lillee for an epic 254, everyone stood up and applauded including Sir Donald Bradman except one person - Sobers' then wife Pru, according to Tony Greig in the DVD Cricket in the 1970s. She was all set to leave him, but they made up and their marriage lasted till 1984.
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Sir Garfield Sobers. Pic/Suresh KK
On the 1966-67 tour of India, Sobers got engaged to Indian actress Anju Mahendru but couldn't marry her. In his autobiography, Sobers wrote that he made a 40-minute film with Mahendru. While at the Breach Candy Hotel, he used to have breakfast with Dilip Kumar. However, Sobers didn't know what happened to the film.
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On his previous tour to India, at the Brabourne Stadium in the 1958-59 season, Sobers was dismissed caught and bowled by Ghulam Guard who was in the police force. As the great West Indian made his way to the pavilion, he told Guard, "that's the most famous arrest you have ever made." In the second innings, Sober slammed a hundred.
Talking about hundreds, Sobers played for South Australia in the 1960s. He loved to sleep while the South Australians batted at the Adelaide Oval, but he invariably used to be woken up by Sir Don Bradman with the words, "wake up, Gary, South Australia are in trouble and we need a hundred from you." And Sobers wouldn't disappoint the great Australian.
In September 1959, while playing in the Lancashire League in England, Sobers was driving a car and met with an accident. It caused the death of his best friend Collie Smith, who was developing into a great player for the West Indies. Smith's death caused Sobers to hit the bottle, but one day he realised that it was not the right route to take. He also realised that he then had to perform not only for himself but Smith as well. This decision helped him rejuvenate and he was a happy scorer again.
Sobers' father, Shamont was a seaman with the Canadian Merchant Navy. Sobers Sr died when the Germans sank his ship in 1942, when little Garfield was just five, leaving his mother Thelma to look after six children. Only after his father's death did Sobers start to play freely with kids from the neighbourhood because his father didn't like him playing with other kids.
Sobers coached in Sri Lanka in the early 1980s and was instrumental in the emergence of Arjuna Ranatunga, who famously led Sri Lanka to their World Cup win in 1996. Sobers was invited to coach Sri Lanka before their 1983 home series against Australia. The great Barbadian sat in the selection committee meeting as a consultant and was amazed to discover that the selectors were not in favour of giving Ranatunga more opportunities. Sobers insisted and told the selectors that if Ranatunga was not in the side, he would take up the issue with then-Board president Gamani Dissanayake.
The selectors relented and Ranatunga scored 90 in the one-off Kandy Test against Australia and averaged 65.00 in the one-day series. Ranatunga has never forgotten that timely intervention.
Did you that Sobers was stumped only once in his Test career - by England's Roy Sweetman off David Allen during the Georgetown Test in 1959-60, but not before he had scored 145 - his third three-figure score of the series.
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