When a panel of 100 experts voted for Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Century in 2000, Don Bradman was a unanimous choice. But second, with 90 votes – 60 clear of third-placed Jack Hobbs – was Garry Sobers, the genius from Barbados who has died 11 days short of his 90th birthday.Bradman first, Sobers second, daylight third. The only surprise was that 10 members of the panel ignored him, for Sobers was almost certainly the greatest all-round cricketer in the game’s history, scoring 8,032 Test runs at an average of nearly 58, taking 235 wickets with a mixture of left-arm pace, orthodox spin and wrist-spin, and holding 109 catches. Even WG Grace, his only credible rival, would have doffed his cap to that.In 1968, Sobers became the first player in first-class cricket to hit six sixes in an over, demolishing Glamorgan’s Malcolm Nash. When the last of his blows cleared the ropes beyond midwicket, the BBC commentator Wilf Wooller famously declared: ‘He’s done it, he’s done it! And my goodness, it’s gone way down to Swansea.’It was the kind of exclamation that accompanied Sobers throughout a 20-year Test career in which the extraordinary power of his hitting was matched by his leonine grace, and his versatility with the ball was like nothing the game had previously seen.After making his first-class debut for Barbados aged 16 in 1953, he was picked for West Indies a year later. But it was not until February 1958 that he first left an indelible mark in the record books, turning his maiden Test century, against Pakistan in Kingston, Jamaica, into a then world-record 365 not out – which stood until April 1994, when Brian Lara surpassed it against England in Antigua.As the Recreation Ground dissolved into pandemonium, Sobers calmly walked out to the middle to embrace the man who had knocked him off his perch. Sir Garfield Sobers has died at the age of 89, Cricket West Indies has announced Barbados-born Sobers played for the West Indies for 20 years, making both his first and last Test appearances in 1954 and 1974 respectively against England Sobers was an elegant and destructive batsman, whose first Test century was a world record 365 against Pakistan The former West Indies captain took 235 wickets during his storied Test career Sobers was bestowed a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II in Bridgetown in 1975Back in 1958, Sobers had celebrated his triple-century with 125 and 109 not out in the next Test, in Guyana, and never looked back. Of the 108 Test batsmen to have scored at least 5,000 runs, only Bradman, Ken Barrington and Wally Hammond had a higher average.And, after his final Test appearance in 1974, his tally of runs remained out on its own until Geoff Boycott ticked it off for England against India at Delhi at the end of 1981.It was a pity those numbers did not include the 254 he made at Melbourne for a Rest of the World XI against Australia in 1971-72, when the international game had to rearrange fixtures because of the ban on apartheid South Africa. Bradman reckoned that innings was ‘probably the best seen in Australia’, while Sobers – by then 36 – said: ‘That was probably as close to perfection I ever came with the bat.’Had he never scored a run, he would have made the West Indian team as a specialist bowler, six times claiming at least five wickets in an innings. Yet his all-round skills extended beyond cricket: he also represented Barbados at football, basketball and golf.Life was not always a bed of roses. His father, Shamont, died when the boat he was on was hit by a torpedo from a U-boat when Sobers was five. With a grim irony, that freed him to play sport on the street, which his father had forbidden.Later, he drank heavily following the death of his West Indies team-mate, Collie Smith, in a car accident on the A34 near Stone in 1959. Sobers had been at the wheel when the car was hit by a truck, and was later fined £10 for driving without due care.Only a pledge to himself to ‘do two men’s jobs, Collie’s and mine’ saved him from alcoholism, though he never sidestepped his love of gambling. Sobers, widely regarded as the sport’s greatest all-rounder, died 11 days short of his 90th birthday Sobers waves as he rings the five minute bell at Lord’s back in June 2016 Sobers pictured alongside King Charles, during a reception at the Prime Minister’s residence in Bridgetown in 2019Seven years after Smith’s death, Sobers touched new all-round heights while captaining West Indies in England. He scored 702 runs at an average of 103, took 20 wickets and held 10 catches.Boycott, who played in that series, wrote in the Daily Telegraph about a batting technique that was all Sobers’s own: ‘He hardly ever played and missed. Spectators will remember his high backlift and powerful strokes, but his defence was excellent as well.’He preferred to stay back and was a magnificent back-foot player before committing to forward strokes, and when he chose to hook, he hooked down with super control. I never saw him sweep. He didn’t need it.’With the sport in mourning, the president of Cricket West Indies, Kishore Shallow, said: ‘Sir Garfield Sobers became more than a sporting icon. He became a symbol of Caribbean excellence, resilience and possibility. His achievements brought pride to Barbados, inspiration to the West Indies and admiration from every corner of the cricketing world.’ A national hero in Barbados – and the world’s greatest all-round cricketer Running along the banks of the Constitution River in Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados, stands National Heroes Square, a testament to the ten greatest figures in the island’s history.Among them are slave rebels, Barbados’s first black politician and its first prime minister.The tenth name is Sir Garfield St Aubrun Sobers.The inclusion of a cricketer alongside names that broke the country free from British rule should come as no surprise. Barbados’s affinity with the sport runs deeper than most. For Barbadians, cricket was a chance to prove their worth to the colonial oppressors. It was a vessel through which nationalistic fervour could be honed and channelled into a political movement. And it was the game that gave them Malcolm Marshall and Joel Garner. Desmond Haynes and Gordon Greenidge. Weekes, Worrell and Walcott. And Sir Garry.In 20 years playing for the West Indies Sobers dominated with bat, ball and in the field. His Test batting average of 57.78 ranks 11th all-time, and none of the ten above him played more than his 93 Tests. None took 235 wickets either, proof of Sobers’s once-in-a-generation talent.In his formative cricketing years however, he was unrecognisable from the player he would become. Originally drafted in as a spinner, Sobers garnered a reputation for tidy performances with the bat without ever going on to make significant contributions. Four years into his time in the Test team, Sobers was yet to make a century and had a highest score of 66. Still only 21 when Pakistan toured the Caribbean in 1957-58, he produced the defining innings of his career. Len Hutton’s 364 against Australia had stood as the world record individual score for 20 years when Sobers came to the crease, and was thought to be unbeatable after the introduction of time-limited Tests. When captain Gerry Alexander finally declared 614 minutes of play later at Kingston’s Sabina Park, Sobers walked off 365 not out. It would remain the record for 36 years.None of the 38 boundaries in Sobers’s mammoth total were sixes, a statistic at odds with how many came to know his batting style. The image of a power-hitting destroyer was shaped by his second-best-known innings, which came a decade later in the whites of Nottinghamshire. Facing Glamorgan spinner Malcolm Nash, Sobers deposited all six deliveries of an over beyond the ropes, becoming the first player to achieve the feat in a first-class game. Nash maintains the only bad ball of the six was the final delivery and Sobers was caught on the fifth ball, but the fielder stumbled and dropped the ball over the boundary.To hold the honour of being both Test cricket’s highest single-innings scorer and one of a select few to hit six sixes in an over is an accolade so far only Sobers has claimed. But in characteristically humble style, such achievements were brushed aside.’The game is always going to be bigger than the man,’ he once said. ‘It doesn’t matter what you are doing, records or whatever, somebody is just going to come along and break your records.’ On his second assertion, Sobers was correct. In 1994 he saw his record Test total surpassed by Brian Lara, the title perhaps fittingly passing to a similarly distinguished West Indian left-hander.But as for his declaration that no cricketer supersedes his craft, Sobers was wrong. He was far more than just a sportsman to Barbadians, exemplified by his appearance on the National Heroes list and the honorific ‘Right Excellent’ that came with it. His legacy within cricket is easy to trace, as the defining all-rounder to whom all who follow are compared. Looking for a title for their Player of the Year Award in 2013, the International Cricket Council employed a panel of former players to be given the honour. Richie Benaud, Sunil Gavaskar and Michael Holding returned a unanimous verdict – Sobers.The West Indian team he played in and eventually captained was by no means the islands’ most successful, still beset by administrative troubles and lacking the genuine pace bowlers that would come to define the all-conquering sides of the 70s and 80s. But what endures from his time in the game is what he embodied for a nation fresh from the horrors of colonial rule, and a man made famous by what he did within 22 yards will be remembered the world over. To Barbados he was a national hero. To the rest of the world he was Sir Garry, and the greatest all-round cricketer the world may ever see.By George Bond