‘One couldn’t take your eyes off Garry’

Farokh Engineer (left) interviews Dennis Lillee (right), and Sir Garfield Sobers at the Wankhede Stadium during the former India wicketkeeper-batsman’s benefit match in 1984. PIC/MID-DAY ARCHIVES

Friday, July 17, was a sad day simply because we lost the world's finest living cricketer - Sir Garfield St Aubrun Sobers.

I am proud to say Garry and I were friends. We became buddies towards the late 1960s. He was to join Lancashire who I played for from 1968, but somehow that arrangement didn't work out and I recommended Clive Lloyd while Garry went over to Nottinghamshire.

One couldn't take your eyes off Garry and that happened to me when I first saw him in the flesh while playing for the Indian Universities against the 1958-59 West Indies team at Nagpur. The next time I played against him was during India's home series against Garry's West Indians in 1966-67.

He got me out after my whirlwind 109 in the final Test at Chennai.

Sir Garfield Sobers. Pic/AFP

We had some good times on and off the field which evoke great memories. I remember a Lancashire vs Nottinghamshire game where we needed one run for a bonus point and Clive just couldn't connect his swinging deliveries the entire over. And Clive was a brutal hitter of the cricket ball. I've never seen anyone swing the ball better than Garry. Then there was his catching at leg slip. As a batsman, he was the best I've seen on a cricket field. That 254 for Rest of the World against Australia at Melbourne in 1972 - how can I forget that? He drove one fiercely which kissed my gloves as I jumped. He had told me to "go back a few steps." That was a signal that, Garry, who had a quiet series until then, was going to make it count.

When he bounced Dennis Lillee in that game, the great fast bowler threw his bat in the dressing room and vowed to "show" Garry. When Garry heard this, he said, "Well, he's got the ball, I've got the bat… well see. And all present at the Melbourne Cricket Ground saw what Sobers could do. Sir Don Bradman called it the finest innings he had ever seen. Both those ‘lead actors' at Melbourne 1972 came for my 1984 benefit game in Mumbai. It took just one phone call.

Our friendship was deep. We called each other for our birthdays which we never forgot. I won't make that call on July 28, sadly.

Garry was a party animal. He'd be up till the wee hours of the morning and yet score a hundred (ask the England team who saw him do it at Lord's 1973). He just loved his late night parties and so did I. It takes one to know one, I guess.

Goodbye Garry, rest well my friend, my hero.

As told to Clayton Murzello