Award-winning Duncan Hamilton’s latest blockbuster on cricket’s greatest all-rounder Sir Garfield Sobers is reviewed by Eric Brown…
BY ERIC BROWN
When you purchase a book with Duncan Hamilton’s name on the cover, you know there’s a treat in store. Almost everything the former Nottingham Evening Post journalist touches strikes literary gold.
His biographies of Brian Clough, Jonny Bairstow, Harold Larwood and writer Neville Cardus were all award-winning books, along with his cricketing “summer” series. A George Best biography and Hamilton’s investigation of England’s 1966 World Cup triumph were shortlisted for awards.
Now he has turned to Sir Garfield Sobers, and the result is just as mesmeric as the books which brought three William Hill Sports Book of the Year prizes, four nominations and two British Sports Book Awards. Hamilton was the first writer to win the Wisden Cricket Book of the Year title on three occasions.
Such recognition is richly deserved for Britain’s premier sports book author. As a writer, Hamilton matches his hero Sobers for all-round skills.
Writing a book about cricket’s greatest all-rounder is strewn with temptation to dwell over-long on an amazing set of statistics like Sobers’ 8,032 runs and 235 wickets in 93 Tests for the West Indies, his world record 365 not out, his then unique achievement of hitting six sixes in an over and his 254, which was described by Sir Donald Bradman as the best innings ever played in Australia.
Yes, these landmarks are all included in Hamilton’s “The Man Who Walked Out of the Sun”, but he chooses not to focus overlong on the results of Sobers’ multi-talents as attacking batsman, pace bowler, seam bowler, swing bowler and the slow left-arm featuring three types of delivery.
Some may let out a groan and think “oh no, not another Sobers biography.” Long ago, England’s Trevor Bailey wrote what was for years considered the definitive Sobers life story.
Half a dozen books have appeared under Sobers’ name. Barely a year has passed since David Tossell’s effort “Maestro” was added to the Sobers canon, and it was reviewed here.
Yet Hamilton’s ability to unearth little-known Sobers gems and “draw” literary character portraits places this book in a different category to predecessors.
For example, “a lanky, bespectacled 21-year-old left-hander who was stoop shouldered but so quick across the covers that he could have picked up waste paper in a gale.” Not Sobers, of course, but a memorable description of West Indian compatriot Clive Lloyd.
A couple of Hamilton’s most significant chapters are devoted to the incident which almost brought Sobers’ career – and his life – to a premature end. It occurred at the notorious Dalastan bend on the A34 near Stone, Staffordshire, on Sunday 6 September 1959.
Sobers, his best friend Collie Smith and Tom Dewdney were heading south to play in a charity match after representing their Northern League clubs at a time when foreign cricketers were required to observe three-year residential qualifying periods before being eligible for the county championship.
Smith slept sprawled across the back seat when the Ford Prefect driven by Sobers collided with a 10-tonne cattle lorry heading in the opposite direction at 4.45am. Sobers afterwards claimed he was blinded by the lorry’s lights while the driver insisted they were dimmed and Sobers had strayed to the wrong side of the road. All three cricketers were taken to hospital, with Smith sustaining the most serious injuries after being thrown out of the vehicle. Two days later, he died.
Surprisingly, the English newspapers seemed indifferent to a crash involving three West Indies cricketers. Hamilton reports that those who actually included anything relegated their small stories to “below the fold” of what were then broadsheets.
The Daily Telegraph managed two paragraphs, The Times 150 words on page 10, The Daily Express, then selling four million copies per day, buried its main coverage on page seven, and The Daily Mirror story appeared on page 11. The Daily Mail’s effort of several substantial paragraphs made page 13. Trumping them all for minuscule coverage was The Guardian, which ran the story on page 26 only in combination with two other road accidents.
Sobers, who played for Radcliffe, and Smith, who represented Burnley, were firm friends back in the West Indies and became even closer during their spell in northern England. When Sobers, along with Dewdney, finally left hospital after being treated for cuts and bruises, he could not escape guilty feelings over the crash.
At Stone magistrates’ court, the jury delivered a verdict of accidental death but the coroner, in his summing up, said “it is hard to understand how Mr Sobers could have been blinded by the lorry’s lights.” Sobers was found guilty of careless driving, fined £10 with £16.17s costs, and had his licence suspended for a month.
He later admitted the accident changed his life completely and he carried a grey cloud of depression around with him for at least six years. Sobers suffered flashbacks regularly and entertained mysterious and ominous thoughts about death. Without best friend Smith to keep him on the straight and narrow, he began to drink heavily.
Happily, as Hamilton reveals, Sobers gradually began to regain his spirit and zest for life and cricket.
Hamilton’s opus is packed with anecdotes, many from much happier times. Like the one concerning legendary Daily Telegraph cricket correspondent E.W. Swanton. The author admits he cannot swear it is true but says he has heard it from many different sources, including Sobers himself.
Apparently, Swanton was driving himself on holiday near Nottingham when he decided to divert and spend a couple of hours watching the cricket at Trent Bridge. Luckily, Sobers happened to be batting. A note from Swanton passed through the hands of stewards and fielders before reaching Sobers, who removed his gloves, opened it and read: “Entertain me. E.W. Swanton.” Sobers looked up and nodded towards the press box.
Three deliveries later, he hoisted an enormous six towards the car park. The ball landed with a bang on the roof of Swanton’s car, inflicting a considerable dent. Sobers later claimed he calibrated the shot so the ball didn’t smash the windscreen.
Garry Sobers died just 11 days short of his 90th birthday on July 17, 2026, shortly after Hamilton’s book reached booksellers.
It is a fitting tribute to the life of cricket’s greatest all-rounder by one of the greatest cricket writers of today.
“The Man Who Walked Out of the Sun” by Duncan Hamilton is published by Abacus Books, price £25.
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