Life-Lessons from My Friend Gary

“Outstanding catch in the (final) day’s performance was that by Sobers (taken low-down at second slip) to dismiss Harvey. It will be talked about at Brisbane as long as cricket is played on the Gabba ground,” wrote L. D. ‘Strebor’ Robert’s on pp. 68 of his `Cricket’s Brightest Summer’.  
 
My downfall as a student has always been, in trying to read everything.
 
In writing on The Right Excellent Sir Garfield St. Aubrun Sobers, NH, AO, OCC., this will not be my downfall. Because since His Excellency’s passing there’s just too much information out there on him, for me to start going-through them. And so, I have no choice, but to write on what I know of him.
 
In this remembrance, I will be referring to Sir Gary as simply `Gary’. Because in a firm voice in our initial telephone-conversation, that is what he instructed me to do – to call him `Gary’. And who am I therefore, not to honor His Excellency’s wishes?
 
And if it was not due to an expired passport, as I am writing this, I should have been on my way down to Bridgetown to pay my last respects to the worldwide-known gentleman who became a friend.
 
When the West Indies were touring Australia in 1961-62, in our home on Gore Terrace in Kingston, Jamaica, we only had one big Rediffusion radio. There was no shortwave radio on-which I could follow live, the cricket commentary coming-in from Australia. And so, I had to follow by delayed reportage in The Jamaica Gleaner, and then, wait for `Strebor’ to chronicle the happenings on that historic cricket tour, in his splendid book soon-after.
 
It was through it that I was introduced to Gary – standing-tall alongside his teammates and masseur Mannie Alves and with his sunshine-smile on the deck of the “Strathaird” as she pulled-into the port of Fremantle, Western Australia. And alongside his astonishing catching as described-above, was his terrific batting, as the Australian left-handed speedster Alan Davidson recalled in ‘The most incredible game’, an article which appeared on ESPNcricinfo in August 2011:
 
“Garry Sobers made 132 in the first innings (of the tied Test). I rate it in the top five innings I’ve ever seen. He didn’t just beat the field – his timing was superb and so was his placement. If you could get a set-square and cut the gap between the fieldsmen in half – he just kept putting it through the gaps; It was a wonderful innings,” wrote Davidson for whom Gary in-return, had a lot of respect.
 
I don’t recall how the conversation came-up. But when Gary afforded me his first-little-sit-down at his home four years ago, the maestro made it a point: “Don’t mess with ‘Davo’ yu-know. He was quick!”   
 
March 7, 1962: On their tour of the Caribbean in 1961-62, India played two of the five Test matches in Jamaica, and my father took me to see the Fifth Test at Sabina Park. It must have been, because by then, the Nawab of Pataudi, jnr., had taken-over from Contractor as captain. And etched in my mind, is Frank Worrell rolling-out (not walking) in his West Indies blazer, to spin the toss with the Nawab. I wasn’t much of a cricket-connoisseur to critique the batting of Sobers. But he got a century in the first innings and a 50 in the second, and the West Indies won by 123 runs.
 
March 7, 1965: Australia roll-into-town and are kicking-off the Test series in Kingston. And the Sunday-evening after attending Sunday-school at St. Lukes Church a little below Cross Roads, on the rest-day of the Test, I find myself up to the Flamingo Hotel indented off-of the Half-Way-Tree Road on Trevennion Park Road. And at the poolside-bar, there is Worrell, Sobers and Seymour Nurse, literally swaying-in-the-breeze.
 
Worrell straightens my tie. But it’s on Sobers I’m fixated. He stares-back at me with askance, but says nothing. With 30 and 27, Gary scores modestly, and picks up only two wickets. The West Indies win by 179 runs. And in the long-striding Australia fast-bowler Graham McKenzie, I find a bowler on-whom I would initially pattern my run-up.
 
But by then, I had bought, which must have been, Gary’s first instructional cricket book, the title of which I now forget. But, I remember going-through-it, page-by-page.    
 
February 9, 1968: It’s a Saturday-morning – the second day of the second Test of the series, and England’s first innings goes into it.
 
Sabina is jam-packed, and I am in-attendance with one of my schoolboy cricket captains Zadoc Henry, and the hurdler Horace Knight. We are seated in the grassy overflow arc in-between the Kingston Cricket Club pavilion and the wooden stand to the northwest.
 
We are so close to the pavilion, that we can hear Sobers’s steel-studded-boots crunch on the tiled-floor, the little green gate squeak as Sobers swings it open, and his pads slapping against his thighs as he begins to make his way. `The Garf’ looks skywards briefly, temporarily bending-back his upright collar and continues to roll-away to the middle. 
 
The ground as I said, is packed to capacity to see the West Indies bat, and no-doubt, to see Sobers in particular. I suspect too, just to see him make his way to the wicket as-well – torso leaning-forward, and with-collar-up. Because with each step of his, the crowd’s crescendo is rising in-anticipation.
 
But one-ball! And that is it!
 
I believe the presiding umpire is Douglas Sang Hue. But whoever it is, when John Snow’s rapid delivery hits Gary’s pads playing-back, the finger like-a-rocket, shoots-up. 
 
Fifty-one years down-the-road by the time COVID-19 hits, and after talking to Gary for a few years, I reminded the GOAT:
 
“Du Gary,” I said, “nuh mek nu-ball lick yu pon yu pads!” That brought-out his trademark high-pitched laugh. Because Gary knew exactly what I was talking about. But back to that Test.
 
In his book ‘Gary Sobers’ Most Memorable Matches’ written along Tony Cozier, the chapter ‘A Devil of a Sabina Pitch’ is dedicated to it. And in `The Confounding Island’, the Kingston College and Harvard professor Dr. Orlando Patterson in asking ‘Why Did Jamaicans Riot at a Cricket Match against England?’ did the same. And just last week on Mason and Guest, former St. Vincent and the Grenadines prime minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves also remembered that Test-match with-fondness. But what did that match teach me?     
 
On Sobers’ first innings dismissal for that duck, there was no Pooran-like slapping of the pad with the bat. No shaking of the head, and no looking towards the heavens in-distress. Sobers held his head up high in-failure, as high as he held it in his subsequent success when he slammed 113 in the second innings.
 
The lesson? Don’t wallow in failure.  
 
But what I remember most about Sobers from that Test, is his classical fast bowling coming up-hill from what is now the George Headley Stand end. It is rhythm and pace personified. And from that day, out went Graham McKenzie and in came Sobers.
 
June 15, 1970: This is my fourth and final year of playing first-team schoolboy-cricket for my alma mater Kingston College (KC). And as a senior member of the team, our coach Mr. Trevor Parchment gives me along with four others, a pair of Gary Sobers Autograph cricket-boots, which I cherish, anointing it almost daily with white Meltonian Shoe Cream Polish.
 
The Sobers-boots apparently works-magic, as that year KC wins both the corporate area Sunlight Cup, and then the all-island Spaulding Cup.     
  
May 18, 2000: It’s the first day of the Second West Indies – Pakistan Test at Kensington Oval. On the walkway at the back of the commentary-box, I run-into Gary and quietly ask him for a photo. “Yes, but let me go to the-little-boys-room first,” he says, all decked-out in a long-sleeve dress shirt, and tie. He returns, and graciously obliges.
 
The thing I notice with Gary, is that Test-cricket at Kensington to-him, is still an occasion. And even though his playing-days are long-gone, in-attire on this day, he is continuing to `represent well’.
 
January 24, 2015: Lawrence Rowe is having an affair in Margate, Florida to celebrate his auspicious entry into Test cricket. Gary attends. And when it is time for him to speak, he puts-on `the Sobers-walk’, and those gathered, begin to pound their tables in unbridled nostalgia.
 
Of Rowe’s innings – the 214 and the 100 not-out against New Zealand, Gary says (quote): “I have never seen shots like those, neither before, nor after.” Typical Sobers – always lavishing praise. But here’s another thing.
 
Sobers’ attendance at Lawrence Rowe’s thing, is a statement. `I am Sobers. Lawrence Rowe played for me. And I am choosing to support him’, he seems to be saying. Sobers is loyal, sometimes in the face of dissenting noises.  
 
But how did I get-onto Gary?
 
At the Kingston College Old Boys Association (KCOBA) annual banquet in November 2009, Sir Wesley Hall who was the keynote speaker that night, left those in attendance with the parting-shot: “Do something for `Collie’ (Smith)!”
 
I took Sir Wes’s to-heart, and with encouragement from one of Sobers’ team-mates Easton McMorris, sounded-out both Sir Gary and Sir Wes by-phone, as to their willingness to support an effort such as that, with their presence.
 
The effort did not bear fruit, but it began quarterly phone conversations between Sir Gary, Sir Wes, and myself. And at one point, Gary extended an invitation to me. “You sound like a nice guy,” he said in that Bajan sing-song voice of his. “Next time you come to Barbados, why don’t you drop-by?” And how could I have passed, on an invitation from the world’s greatest cricketing-all-rounder?
 
October 13, 2022: It’s been a couple years now that Gary and I have been talking by-phone, and finally the time has-come. “How about after-lunch?” I ask on my arrival in Barbados. “That’s fine,” says Sobers. And so, my elder son and I fetch a taxi at the Rostrevor in the St. Lawrence Gap and find our way to Highgate Gardens in Wildey.
 
And what an afternoon this is – solving the world’s problems with unarguably the greatest all-rounder the world has ever seen. But to me, Gary is coming-across, not as the world’s greatest, but as one of my every-day-friends – one whom I haven’t seen in years.
 
“You look like a million dollars,” he keeps saying. I am not buying-it. But that’s Sobers – always trying to make people feel better than they might be. The same occurs in June two years later when I again visit Barbados and am accompanied this time by my younger son. We drink Banks beer, watch television, exchange comments on sports, world-affairs, and on famous personalities, you name it.   
 
In reading and listening to the tributes to Gary as they pour in, my own experiences in his company, are nothing but validations. Sobers was `a-people-person’.  
 
October 16, 2022: Calvin Hope now president of the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) invites me to a cricket match of some kind at Kensington Oval. Sir Gary and Sir Wes are there, and at-lunch, I find myself at their dining table. And after-lunch, fetching ice-cream dessert for them.
                           
“Yu-know-sumting,” says Sir Wes to Sir Gary, “I should have batted higher-up in the order for the West Indies. Even higher than you.”
 
Gary says nothing, but looks at Sir Wes as if he is looking at a man who has just taken-leave of his senses. Gary excuses himself to join Jackie White his beloved partner. And so, I ask Sir Wes.
 
“Tell me,” I ask Sir Wes, “has Sobers always been this way – down-to-earth and accommodating?”
 
“I tell you,” Sir Wes begins, “if you think Sobers was a great cricketer, he’s twice a greater-man.” And in my cameo experiences in the company of Gary, I believe his long-time friend and team-mate was speaking-truth to Sobers’ power.   
 
May my friend’s soul, now rest in peace.
 
Ray Ford is a graduate student in an Advanced Academic Program at the Johns Hopkins University.