When Garry Sobers’ falling chances helped Sunny! | Cricket News
Garfield Sobers is the greatest all-rounder of all time. Over 93 Tests, he smashed 8,032 runs, took 235 wickets and 109 catches, some gems in the slips. But on India’s 1971 tour of the Caribbean, the West Indian maestro quit Sunil Gavaskar no fewer than three times, giving an unintended fillip to the career of the young opener who was playing in his debut Test series. Gavaskar, who described Sobers as “the greatest cricketer I have ever seen” in his book ‘Idols’, detailed those missed opportunities in his autobiography ‘Sunny Days’.“I was happy to see Sobers grass a low-speed edge from Holder as I tried to drive him off the back foot. Sobers fell in the attempt but spilled the ball. It was a lucky break,” he wrote. The opportunity was offered when Sunny turned 20 and he went on to score 65 on debut. It was the only Test in which India recorded their first victory against the West Indies in Trinidad. Sobers also had a hand, literally, in Gavaskar getting his first ton. The opener wrote, “As I neared my first century, dark clouds began to gather and it began to rain. Play continued, however, and at 94 I was saved by perhaps the simplest of catches.”It happened that Sunny played forward to a flighted delivery from off-spinner Jack Noreiga. “The ball spun and bounced, I hit my glove and went to Sobers, who would have taken a dolly if he had been standing where he was before the ball was delivered. But Garry, anticipating my forward defensive stroke, went forward,” wrote Gavaskar. Sobers missed the grab. “At the end of the over, Gary stood in front of me and said, ‘Maan, why are you chasing me, didn’t you see another fielder?’ He has dropped me three times so far and this last one was the easiest of the lot.Sunny scored 116.But the West Indian great took it all. Gavaskar scored 124 and 220 in the final Test, taking his run tally to a staggering 774 in the series. “As I walked back to the pavilion, Sobers smilingly tore off my hat,” Sunny wrote. Both cricketers were in the same side, Rest of the World, against Australia in 1971-72. Sobers’ 254 against Lillee and Co. in Melbourne was described by Donald Bradman as “the greatest since War”. And yet “the strange thing is that she has never worn leg guards in her life,” Sunny wrote.
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