Mid-Day Opinion: Take Sobers’s word for it

Sir Garfield Sobers with Sunil Gavaskar in 1984. PIC/MID-DAY ARCHIVES

I didn't have the education to write books. But I know the game," the late Sir Garfield Sobers said at an event organised by the Barbados Museum and Historic Society in 2019. The cricket legend, who passed away in Barbados on Friday at 89, was referring to the fact that one doesn't need to be scholarly to coach a team. Sobers didn't take into consideration no less than eight cricket books he wrote in collaboration with professional writers.

To reveal what Sobers wrote on the Indian cricketers he played against (Sunil Gavaskar and Farokh Engineer were also his teammates in the 1971-72 Rest of the World side), I tucked into two of the most popular books by him that were available on these shores. Twenty Years at the Top, co-written with Brian Scovell and published by MacMillan in 1988, and Garry Sobers An Autobiography with Bob Harris, published by Headline in 2002.

Incidentally, Sachin Tendulkar listed Twenty Years at the Top as the last book he read in an intimate interview to me in 1990. I also drew from a two-part extensive interview which Sobers gave Sunil Gavaskar in the Gavaskar-edited magazine Indian Cricketer in 1984, published by the Aajkaal group. A 1984 issue of Sportsweek magazine had Sobers's brief view of Dilip Sardesai in an interview with Ayaz Memon. Sardesai played against Sobers in 1962, 1966-67, and 1971.

Here's what Sobers had to say about the Indian cricketers of his playing days.

Polly Umrigar
I was so pleased to be given my chance, playing with [Everton] Weekes, [Clyde] Walcott, [Denis] Atkinson and Roy Marshall [for Barbados vs Indians in 1952-53]. It was all special but nothing compared to the thrill of being called on to bowl for the first time. The first two overs I bowled were maidens. Polly got a bit fed up with being tied down by this skinny kid and promptly hit me for six on to the top of the Kensington stand. Two balls later I had him with a straight one as he played for the turn that was not there. The packed pavilion went up to salute me. I was just 16, it was my first wicket at that level and they loved the romance of it.

Vinoo Mankad
He would be a test for many of today's batsmen. We faced back-of-the-hand bowlers like Jack Walsh, George Tribe, Jack Hill, and Lindsay Kline - bowlers who spun the ball a lot. There are no bowlers of that type today to worry anyone.

Denis Atkinson, who toured India in 1948 with the West Indies, wanted to practise against a slow left arm bowler to prepare himself for his coming meetings with Mankad. Denis and some of the other members [of the Wanderers club] must have been reasonably impressed, for they asked me to bowl to them the following week.

Bishan Singh Bedi
Bedi's bowling was full of craft and guile. He flighted the ball and also had the ability to hold it back. Batsmen would stretch for it and find it wasn't quite there, mistiming their shot and often giving a catch. He changed his pace so subtly that the victim rarely knew what was happening. I loved playing against him. He was a courageous player. If he threw the ball up and you drove it for six, he would throw the next one up. He never ducked a challenge. He liked players to go for his bowling. It gives me more chance to get them out, he said.

Salim Durrani
Though not in the class of Bedi, he was a much underrated bowler. For some reason, the selectors did not seem to like him.

Bapu Nadkarni
Nadkarni was one of the meanest bowlers I have played against. He would race out on either side of the wicket to prevent singles. He was one of the few bowlers I saw run to point to eliminate the chance of a quick single!

EAS Prasanna
The leading Indian off-spinner in my time, though the Indian selectors did not agree too often with that view, was [EAS] Prasanna. He flighted the ball more than the man who kept him out on occasions, [Srinivas] Venkataraghavan.

Subhash Gupte & Chandu Borde
The Indians also had a number of world-class leg-spin and googly bowlers including Chandra [Sobers called him Chandra and not Chandu in the book] Borde and Subhash Gupte. Borde was accurate and bowled with a high looping action. He was also a Test-class batsman. In my opinion, Gupte was the best leg-spinner of my time in cricket- better than Richie Benaud or Abdul Qadir. To me, Gupte was a better bowler than Shane Warne. One reason is that Gupte had a far wider variety, and his disguised googly was far better than Warne's.

BS Chandrasekhar
On a tuner Chandra would probably be dangerous, but on a firm wicket too, he was good, because of the hustle through. I remember Chandrasekhar taking the second new ball [in the third and final Test at Chennai in 1966-67] and bowling Charlie [Griffith] one of the fastest bouncers I have ever seen. It was quite deliberate, as Charlie had bounced him a time or two.

Farokh Engineer
Farokh was very, very good. I've played against him in Test matches and I've played against him in County cricket. Rooky [Engineer's nickname] is a stylist. And another fellow, BK Kunderan. He was not a bad wicketkeeper. But the best I've seen from India is Farokh.

Sunil Gavaskar
Despite suffering from toothache, Sunny Gavaskar scored 124 and 220 in that [5th Test, Trinidad] match and we lost the [197071] rubber. He showed in that first Test series what a wonderful player he was, and 18 years later he was still scoring runs against the world's best bowlers. He's a man who has proved his greatness. And he wasn't a bad captain, either.

Dilip Sardesai
Sardi [who scored 642 runs vs Sobers's WI in 1971] was a wonderful batsman, a real battler.

mid-day's Deputy Editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance.
He tweets @ClaytonMurzello. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.