A comprehensive, warts-and-all biography of cricket’s greatest post-war all-rounder is reviewed by Eric Brown…
BY ERIC BROWN
Back in the 1950s, it was fashionable for schoolboys to select and endlessly trumpet support for a hero.
With the UK’s television and recording industries still in their infancy, the choice often rested between film or sports stars.
Because I didn’t watch films much, that narrowed the choice to sports. I considered Peter May, Fred Trueman and Colin Cowdrey from cricket; footballers John Charles, Stan Matthews, Tom Finney and Jimmy Greaves; athlete Roger Bannister; and a few others.
Uncertain which to choose, I moved on, but I couldn’t pretend to be Juan Fangio or even Stirling Moss, so I decided on… Garry Sobers.
He seemed like a magician to a primary school boy. I was 10 in 1958 when the 21-year-old Sobers shattered Len Hutton’s world record with 365 not out for the West Indies against Pakistan in Kingston, Jamaica.
He seemed a useful bowler too, and from then on, whenever playing cricket on the local recreation ground, I nursed ambitions to be Garry Sobers.
Two problems stood in my way. I wasn’t blessed with a scintilla of the talent that oozed from Sobers. Oh, and he was left-handed, I was right-handed. A couple of years’ instruction from my father about playing forward, keeping bat and pad together, also ruled out any possibility of copying the backfoot trademark Sobers pulls and hooks. Realisation slowly dawned that I’d never be anything like the mercurial Sobers, and I settled for being a right-arm trundler and a sticker opening batsman.
This only increased my admiration for Sobers, who seemed capable of doing anything he wished on a cricket pitch. Not only was he a forceful middle-order batsman and occasional opener, he could bowl so many different styles: left-arm pace, medium pace with the ability to swing the ball both ways, wrist spin and finger spin. He had few peers as a close to the wicket fielder. Indeed, it seemed that if a grand piano was wheeled onto the pitch, he’d soon be playing it to concert level.
David Tossell’s intriguing new book on Sobers is not for nothing entitled “Maestro”, for that is indeed what Sobers became. The sub-title ‘Cricket’s Greatest All-Rounder’ would be challenged by few, with perhaps only Ian Botham and Jacques Kallis of post-war players qualifying to be mentioned in the same breath.
David Tossell, whose previous publications earned seven nominations for the British Sports Book Awards, obviously includes Sobers’ most significant moments like his 365, his unprecedented six sixes in a County Championship over for Nottinghamshire off luckless Glamorgan bowler Malcolm Nash, and his part in the first tied Test between West Indies and Australia.
Honoured to be asked by @MCCOfficial to speak last night @HomeOfCricket about Garry Sobers, subject of my book Maestro, out via @PitchPublishing. pic.twitter.com/2DmtpO3wHF
— David Tossell (@David_Tossell) March 12, 2026
Any book about a cricketer with over 8,000 runs in 93 Tests for an average of 57.78 and 26 centuries, and figures of 235 wickets at 34.03 and 109 catches runs risks of deteriorating into a statistical quagmire.
This is never the case. Even though more key figures are trotted out stating Sobers had been “robbed” of more than 1,000 runs and dozens more wickets when his Rest of the World appearances were deemed to have been in unofficial Tests.
Some of the most fascinating content of the book relates to Sobers’ sporting development while growing up in a wooden shack in Barbados. Garry seems to have perfected those speciality cuts and pulls in a local version of cricket where batters were required to keep one knee grounded behind the popping crease.
‘One of the first cricketers to appreciate his true value’
Born the fifth of seven children on 28 July, 1936, Garfield St Aubrun Sobers lost his father Shamont in January 1942 when a German U-boat torpedo sank the Canadian merchant vessel on which he was working.
Money was short for the Sobers family. With no cash to buy sporting equipment, Garry used bats made from coconut tree branches or fence palings in street cricket games. Balls were rags wrapped around a stone and soaked in tar.
Yet Sobers soon demonstrated significant prowess at a range of sports. He grew so proficient so quickly that he even gained an international football cap as a teenager before concentrating on cricket. The result was one of the greatest careers from the sport’s greatest all-rounder after he left school at 14 to work as a tally clerk, boarding boats to note the cargoes.
This is no gushing, tribute-type book, with Mr Tossell unafraid to tackle controversy surrounding Sobers on and off the pitch. He examines the reasons behind captain Sobers’ rash Trinidad declaration that led to a West Indies defeat by England, discusses his regular all-night drink and gambling sessions, and delves into the death of Burnley club professional and West Indies roommate Collie Smith in a road accident when Sobers was driving.
The experience mentally scarred Sobers, who escaped with a £10 fine, a one-month driving ban and about £17 costs.
His decision to play in apartheid-fixated Rhodesia thrust Sobers into a political storm that split opinion in the Caribbean and almost cost him his job. After an ill-fated engagement to someone else, his September 1969 marriage to Australian-born Pru Kirby in Nottingham raised eyebrows. They soon divorced.
Later, his judgment was questioned over an episode involving Texas banker Allen Stanford, whose heavy financial backing for West Indian cricket eventually tanked with his exposure as a conman operating a Ponzi-type scheme.
Sobers refused to distance himself from Stanford. Even when the Texan went to prison, Sobers defended Stanford, his misguided loyalty fuelled by the crooked cash for West Indian cricket.
As with the Rhodesia venture, Sobers displayed a certain lack of worldliness by failing to realise or acknowledge that the cash for cricket in his homeland only materialised because Stanford had swindled people out of their savings.
He also trod a minefield when he became one of the first cricketers to appreciate his true value. Perhaps still conscious of his poverty-stricken upbringing, he at first declined to accept a West Indies invitation to tour England in 1963 as he regarded the £800 fee as inferior to what he could earn in league cricket.
He changed his mind only after intervention from such cricket luminaries as Don Bradman, Frank Worrell and Richie Benaud, who pointed out his absence and the reason behind it would irritate administrators and fans for the rest of his career. The next year, Sobers became West Indies captain.
When Sobers loped to the wicket with his deceptively lazy gait, shirt collar raised and bat in left hand, bars emptied of spectators who knew they were in for a treat.
Some say you should never meet your heroes because they will always be a disappointment. Not this time. After watching Sobers several times, my big moment came when in retirement, he accepted a managerial position with Sri Lanka for a limited-overs World Cup in England.
I was assigned to cover England v Sri Lanka at Taunton and found Sobers to be considerate, patient and helpful to the gaggle of journalists who demanded pre-match interviews. He assembled us in mid-pitch for a press conference, which developed into a chat as he showed no sign of wanting to hurry away.
Yes, Sobers was being paid, but he could have cut the session short and made off in half the time.
As Dennis Lillee once said: “If there was a superman of cricket, it was Garry Sobers.”
A true superhero indeed.
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