Celebrating Sir Garry Sobers - The Bowler

[Sanz]

... and still the thread "Celebrating Sir Garfield Sobers - The Bowler" continues to be hijacked in a wrist-slashingly tedious way...

KaZoh0lic has continued his propaganda in this thread and despite several requests nothing has been done to stop it.

While I have no interest in his stats, it is hard to let him carry on.

 

[Richard]

I said he wouldn't, without paraphrase in this way:

That gives no indication what peroid I was talking about. Sorry, Richard, if you think I meant that - and I don't see how you thought that - then you were wrong.

You gave no indication of what period you were talking about because you don't seem to realise periods existed. You seem to think Sobers was the same calibre of bowler all career.

Only Sobers at his best would qualify and even then it is still debatable considering even in his 'peak' period he only averaged sub 30 against India. He was also noticeably better in England.

Given he only played 3 teams, averaging near enough exactly 30 against both England and Australia in the time in question, that's not especially relevant.

I don't have the misconception you are attributing to me. In fact, I addressed this very point of "ups and downs" when I said you can only compare a new bowler or an old bowler with Sobers either some fair overall method or at that same stage of Sobers' own career.

How do you compare Sobers with players like Broad and Johnson who both have less than 10 Test matches each. You can't unless you are talking purely when Sobers was at the same age. There is a reason why their records aren't as good as they could be, and it has more to do with experience than talent. Whereas Sobers' talent and experience has started and ended already.

You are the person attempting to compare, by saying Sobers would never have got into the respective teams ahead of them at the moment. When, quite simply, he would.

How has Johnson been poor to date? Averages low 30s and low 60s SR.

And the issue doesn't stop with simply replacing Johnson the bowler, but filling that gap for Australia. If Sobers was in contention he'd be in a long line behind many Australian domestic bowlers. End of story. Johnson is only being tried out, he isn't even established himself, whether he fails or succeeds is upto him, but he won't be replaced by someone of the caliber of Sobers.

You don't know that, however - as you don't know how successful Sobers would be in Australian domestic cricket currently. You do know how successful he was when he played it, of course, but the fact is that for much of his Test career he was better than Johnson has ever been or quite possibly the likes of Noffke and Siddle will ever be.

 

[Ikki]

KaZoh0lic has continued his propaganda in this thread and despite several requests nothing has been done to stop it.

While I have no interest in his stats, it is hard to let him carry on.

I read both yours and Richard's reply and I was going to respond but you are right. I won't post here the way I have been doing...

 

[Sanz]

Thank You KaZo.

 

[Perm]

I read both yours and Richard's reply and I was going to respond but you are right. I won't post here the way I have been doing...

Thank you very much

Your opinion always makes for interesting reading Kazo, and I for one enjoy it.

 

[SJS]

Okay. Now that we have got that out of the way, lets get the discussion back on track (in any case we have just one thread now to do so).

Its a tough task comparing any two players and it gets tougher as the distance between them increases - distance brought about by time (players born in different eras), distance brought about by skill sets (players who are practising different skills as fast bowlers versus spinners ), to a lesser extent distances created by physical distance (players playing for different countries so that they do not play exactly the same opposition and certainly not in the same matches) and so on.

It becomes much more complex if you have all three, of the above, present AND the players have more than one skill to compare. This makes it well nigh impossible. How to compare a bowling all rounder to a batting all rounder for example. This is simply not on. Remember here we are talking of great players who would be stars in the game and not comparing, say ronnie Irani's with the Ian Botham's .

Its a mug's game really. Because you cant compare them.

I am faced with the same dilemma everytime I chose an all time Indian team - Bedi or Mankad. Bedi the far better bowler, Mankad the man who can bat. I just keep arguing with myself.

- But then I already have Kapil as an all rounder?
- But then Mankad could open in a land where I am short of an openers' pool?
- But then this ... but then that​

So the debate goes on in my head. (Now you dont have to start another debate here on the Indian team - I am just saying this for a quick example. If I think, I might find an even better one but I hope I make the point.)

Here at least one is a spinner and the other a pacer but if both bowled pace (or both bowled spin) but one was a far better batsman and the other a better bowler. Its that much tougher to weigh one skill against another. Ten Bradmans cant win a Test for you nor can ten Barnes. You cant put batting averages against bowling averages and arrive at some formula to decide which player (or team/group of players) is better.

I think is a lot of merit in the argument that Miller is a better all rounder than Sobers because Miller's two basic skills (batting and bowling) are better balanced than Sobers' who is an all time great batsman. But thats why it is difficult.

To prefer Sobers over Miller is not a reflection on Miller's great claims as a top all rounder but to accept the way most selector's would address this dillemma. If I had Mankad in my side as an opener and then I had to chose two spinners between Bedi, Prasanna and Chandrashekhar, dropping Bedi would become so easy inspite of his being one of the greatest left arm spinners in the history of the game. Take away Mankad and Bedi becomes a much stronger contender.

Selecting Mankad in favour of Bedi in that first scenario is no reflection on who is a better bowler but in the selectors most important duty to get the best amalgam of skill sets within the eleven heads they are allowed to put on the field.

So to all Miller fans, and I count myself as a BIG Miller fan, let me just say, Miller was one of the greatest all rounders of the world and that is a HUGE compliment. If Bradman could bowl pace, even like, say Steve Harmison (again just the first name that came to me no arguments around this please), it would be no blot on Miller's credentials as a bowler or all rounder, if selectors thought they had their all rounder and pushed for a set of bowlers to provide the best and most varied set of skills.

As to whether the side should have four or five bowlers, that is another debate altogether. But trust me, in a Test match situation, where taking wickets is paramount (as is keeping your bowlers fresh if the opposition batted all of two days), a captain would love to have five bowlers AND seven batsmen if he can and hence the need for all rounders - both amongst bowlers and keepers.

 

[honestbharani]

Just one thing I wanted to tell Kazo here...


I agree that SOME ppl might have been biased towards Sobers in their accounts but based on what I have read here and in other places, almost everyone seem to think that he was a good bowler. How could all of them be wrong???


I dont care about stats because I have seen enough to know that they can be misleading if not taken in the proper context. I have no idea about the context here though as I was not around when he was playing. So I prefer to take the words of former greats over the stats, simply because the consensus amongst those greats is almost overwhelming... It is not like some said he was good and some said he was ordinary. Almost anyone who has seen him say he was good. That can't just be bias or favoritism or whatever word that is appropriate, can it?

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Just one thing I wanted to tell Kazo here...


I agree that SOME ppl might have been biased towards Sobers in their accounts but based on what I have read here and in other places, almost everyone seem to think that he was a good bowler. How could all of them be wrong???


I dont care about stats because I have seen enough to know that they can be misleading if not taken in the proper context. I have no idea about the context here though as I was not around when he was playing. So I prefer to take the words of former greats over the stats, simply because the consensus amongst those greats is almost overwhelming... It is not like some said he was good and some said he was ordinary. Almost anyone who has seen him say he was good. That can't just be bias or favoritism or whatever word that is appropriate, can it?

The stats themselves don't lie as they are facts about what took place, the problems come when those interpreting the stats don't understand cricket beyond the numbers.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyway I've just been reading an article written by Sobers himself in 1970. He says he almost quit cricket for good after the West Indies tour of 1968-69 due to the tiring schedule. At that time he was playing in the County Championship and Sheffield Shield as well as Test Cricket. At the time one of his stated ambitions was to lead Notts to the championship because it was the only team he'd captained at any level which had not won a league. He also upset the golfing world at the time by stating that when he retires from cricket he could take up golf professionally. All he meant was that he likes to think that if he'd played it full time he would have been good enough to earn a living but of course the press jumped on what he said and misinterpreted it.

 

[Sanz]

Geoff Armstrong Writes in "Legends of Cricket" about 'Sobers - The Bowler"

".....It would be wrong to suggest that Sobers was a phenomenal Test bowler, in the manner of a Marshall, Hadlee, a Warne or a Wasim Akram. His uniqueness lay in his versatility - no other bowler in Test History has been so proficient in three contrasting forms of attack - and the fact that he was doing this while scoring mountains of runs as well.

One spell of a year and a half proves the point. In Brisbane in November 1968, against Australia at the Gabba, Sobers spun the West Indies to victory by taking 6-73, bowling orthodox front-of-the-hand spinners. In 1970, at Lord's, captaining a Rest of the World XI against England, he took 6-21 at the opening day, swinging and seaming the ball at pace. Not done yet, he scored 183, and then helped his team to victory by bowling back-of-the-hand wrist spin.

Sobers came into Test Cricket as a spinner, but became most feared as a bowler when he came off his paceman's run, a skill he had developed at Radcliffe,and progressed further when playing for South Australia. Once he recognized he could fill a void in Worrell's Test team as a regular first change bowler, he quickly absorbed the subtleties of swing and seam, while retaining the ability to fire down the old ball as rapid as anything the side's classic fast spearhead, Wes Hall.

'His speed derived from a beautiful body action,' wrote the former England all-rounder Trevor Bailey of Sobers' quick bowling action, 'classically perfect, head looking over the outside of a right arm, left arm completing a full arc before chasing the right across his body in full follow-through.'

Inevitably, his bowling suffered to a degree because is batting was so important. And, because he was a support bowler to Hall and Griffith in the pace department and Lance Gibbs with Spin during the WIndies great days in the 1960s, he rarely bowled downwind with his quicks or into the breeze with his slows. And later, after Hall and Griffith faded from the scene and the team's overall bowling power was diminished, Sobers was obliged to bowl long, defensive spells.

Despite all this, he finished with 235 Test wickets, which at the time of his final Test, in 1974, ranked him seventh all time, and the leading left-hander.

One occasion that tells plenty about Sobers' bowling gifts occurred during the 1963 series in England, a thrilling five-Test rubber in which he was clearly the pre-eminent all-round player, scoring 322 runs and taking 22 wickets. In doing so, he became the second man after Keith Miller, to do the 300 runs/20 wickets double in a series twice (three years later, again in England, he would become the first - and to 2002 only - player to achieve this feat three times). In fourth Test, at Headingley, while Hall was warming up to bowl the opening ball of England's second innings, Sobers walked up to Worrell and said, 'I've got a hunch I can get Mickey Stewart out.'

Stewart was preparing to face the first ball. Worrell didn't blink,'Okay,' he said,' you can have the first over.'

What Wes Hall thought of this is not recorded.The fact that Sobers knocked over Stewart's stumps immediately most certainly is......"

 

[steve132]

The stats themselves don't lie as they are facts about what took place, the problems come when those interpreting the stats don't understand cricket beyond the numbers.

Exactly. This is the point that a number of us have been trying to make on this and other threads.

 

[steve132]

Geoff Armstrong Writes in "Legends of Cricket" about 'Sobers - The Bowler"

".....It would be wrong to suggest that Sobers was a phenomenal Test bowler, in the manner of a Marshall, Hadlee, a Warne or a Wasim Akram. His uniqueness lay in his versatility - no other bowler in Test History has been so proficient in three contrasting forms of attack - and the fact that he was doing this while scoring mountains of runs as well.

One spell of a year and a half proves the point. In Brisbane in November 1968, against Australia at the Gabba, Sobers spun the West Indies to victory by taking 6-73, bowling orthodox front-of-the-hand spinners. In 1970, at Lord's, captaining a Rest of the World XI against England, he took 6-21 at the opening day, swinging and seaming the ball at pace. Not done yet, he scored 183, and then helped his team to victory by bowling back-of-the-hand wrist spin.

Sobers came into Test Cricket as a spinner, but became most feared as a bowler when he came off his paceman's run, a skill he had developed at Radcliffe,and progressed further when playing for South Australia. Once he recognized he could fill a void in Worrell's Test team as a regular first change bowler, he quickly absorbed the subtleties of swing and seam, while retaining the ability to fire down the old ball as rapid as anything the side's classic fast spearhead, Wes Hall.

'His speed derived from a beautiful body action,' wrote the former England all-rounder Trevor Bailey of Sobers' quick bowling action, 'classically perfect, head looking over the outside of a right arm, left arm completing a full arc before chasing the right across his body in full follow-through.'

Inevitably, his bowling suffered to a degree because is batting was so important. And, because he was a support bowler to Hall and Griffith in the pace department and Lance Gibbs with Spin during the WIndies great days in the 1960s, he rarely bowled downwind with his quicks or into the breeze with his slows. And later, after Hall and Griffith faded from the scene and the team's overall bowling power was diminished, Sobers was obliged to bowl long, defensive spells.

Despite all this, he finished with 235 Test wickets, which at the time of his final Test, in 1974, ranked him seventh all time, and the leading left-hander.

One occasion that tells plenty about Sobers' bowling gifts occurred during the 1963 series in England, a thrilling five-Test rubber in which he was clearly the pre-eminent all-round player, scoring 322 runs and taking 22 wickets. In doing so, he became the second man after Keith Miller, to do the 300 runs/20 wickets double in a series twice (three years later, again in England, he would become the first - and to 2002 only - player to achieve this feat three times). In fourth Test, at Headingley, while Hall was warming up to bowl the opening ball of England's second innings, Sobers walked up to Worrell and said, 'I've got a hunch I can get Mickey Stewart out.'

Stewart was preparing to face the first ball. Worrell didn't blink,'Okay,' he said,' you can have the first over.'

What Wes Hall thought of this is not recorded.The fact that Sobers knocked over Stewart's stumps immediately most certainly is......"

Sanz:

This is an excellent quote. I can't think of any other short passage that better summarizes Sobers' ability as a bowler.

 

[Sanz]

Thanks Steve. It has been quite a learning experience for me as well.

 

[honestbharani]

Geoff Armstrong Writes in "Legends of Cricket" about 'Sobers - The Bowler"

".....It would be wrong to suggest that Sobers was a phenomenal Test bowler, in the manner of a Marshall, Hadlee, a Warne or a Wasim Akram. His uniqueness lay in his versatility - no other bowler in Test History has been so proficient in three contrasting forms of attack - and the fact that he was doing this while scoring mountains of runs as well.

One spell of a year and a half proves the point. In Brisbane in November 1968, against Australia at the Gabba, Sobers spun the West Indies to victory by taking 6-73, bowling orthodox front-of-the-hand spinners. In 1970, at Lord's, captaining a Rest of the World XI against England, he took 6-21 at the opening day, swinging and seaming the ball at pace. Not done yet, he scored 183, and then helped his team to victory by bowling back-of-the-hand wrist spin.

Sobers came into Test Cricket as a spinner, but became most feared as a bowler when he came off his paceman's run, a skill he had developed at Radcliffe,and progressed further when playing for South Australia. Once he recognized he could fill a void in Worrell's Test team as a regular first change bowler, he quickly absorbed the subtleties of swing and seam, while retaining the ability to fire down the old ball as rapid as anything the side's classic fast spearhead, Wes Hall.

'His speed derived from a beautiful body action,' wrote the former England all-rounder Trevor Bailey of Sobers' quick bowling action, 'classically perfect, head looking over the outside of a right arm, left arm completing a full arc before chasing the right across his body in full follow-through.'

Inevitably, his bowling suffered to a degree because is batting was so important. And, because he was a support bowler to Hall and Griffith in the pace department and Lance Gibbs with Spin during the WIndies great days in the 1960s, he rarely bowled downwind with his quicks or into the breeze with his slows. And later, after Hall and Griffith faded from the scene and the team's overall bowling power was diminished, Sobers was obliged to bowl long, defensive spells.

Despite all this, he finished with 235 Test wickets, which at the time of his final Test, in 1974, ranked him seventh all time, and the leading left-hander.

One occasion that tells plenty about Sobers' bowling gifts occurred during the 1963 series in England, a thrilling five-Test rubber in which he was clearly the pre-eminent all-round player, scoring 322 runs and taking 22 wickets. In doing so, he became the second man after Keith Miller, to do the 300 runs/20 wickets double in a series twice (three years later, again in England, he would become the first - and to 2002 only - player to achieve this feat three times). In fourth Test, at Headingley, while Hall was warming up to bowl the opening ball of England's second innings, Sobers walked up to Worrell and said, 'I've got a hunch I can get Mickey Stewart out.'

Stewart was preparing to face the first ball. Worrell didn't blink,'Okay,' he said,' you can have the first over.'

What Wes Hall thought of this is not recorded.The fact that Sobers knocked over Stewart's stumps immediately most certainly is......"

Best in this thread yet, I think..



Excellent work digging that up, Sanz..

 

[nightprowler10]

Haven't read many articles posted in the thread so far, but this has been the best of what I've read. Thanks Sanz.

 

[BhupinderSingh]

Have often wondered why Sobers didn't switch to seam earlier, as he was clearly better with seam than spin. He could've bowled seam at Sabina Park and Kensington, and spin at Queen's Park Oval and Bourda.

He made more reputation as a *good bowler* because he could only bowl three types,who knows restricting to one type wouldn't have given so much glory & name as greatest allrounder ever.But given the quality of medium pace he bowled,he would've definitely been my greatest allrounder ever then,

 

[SJS]

There is this wonderful piece that Cardus wrote for The Guardian after watching Sobers play for the Rest of The World XI at Lord's where he took 6 for 21 in 20 overs, and then scored 183. In England's second innings, he took another two wickets for 43 runs in 31 overs.

In an interesting article, Cardus, while acknowledging Sobers as a genius, does not think he was the greatest ever, opting for those from earlier eras and also plays down Sobers bowling skills in comparison with specialist bowlers.

The great Neville Cardus on Sobers

The wonderful Garry Sobers, most easily masterful of batsmen, delights at one and the same time artists and statisticians, stroking the ball with a bat apparently itself alive, sensitive and powerful in turn. Also a cricketer who can use the new ball dangerously and, again, with an appeal to the watcher's love for rhythm, effortless of motion; for Sobers, when he runs to bowl, is relaxed until the swing over the left arm, then the accumulation of energy is quite the musical crescendo.

His all round performances in the England v Rest of the World match at Lord's must count amongst the most distinguished of all batsman-bowler achievements. He can done everything a cricketer can hopefully envisage. And Sobers can be two contrasted bowlers, a seamer of guile, not mechanical, and a back of the hand spinner of leg breaks and googlies.

At Lord's last week while Illingworth and Knott resisted the Rest of the World attack more or less untroubled from half-past eleven to lunch, I said to myself, 'Gary could get Illingworth out in a few balls, if he bowled his slow spin,' which he did, as soon as he tried putting the gallant workmanship of Illingworth under a spell.

Is Sobers the greatest of all-round cricketers ever? This is an uncritical and rather vain question. Performance in any calling of life, is related to environment, to the material pressures which, to some extent, 'condition' even genius. Maybe Sobers could have coped with the terrible sticky wickets which Victor Trumper conquered triumphantly in 1902, against some of the finest spinners in cricket's history. But we can not measure genius with genius; you can not try to place a Mozart above a Beethoven, a Bach above a Schubert. Each is an absolute. It is only mediocrity that we can put into the scales, pricing So-and-So sixpence or so more saleable than - Never Mind.

A test of a great all round cricketer is this; would he be picked to play in a Test match for his batting only or for his bowling only (good fielding of course being taken for granted)? Sobers, as bowler, does not day-by-day run through a side. He has, for all the cricket hen takes part in, never approached Woolley's all-round excellencies of 1921-22-23, when in consecutive summers, he scored 2101 runs, with 167 wickets, 2033 with 163 wickets and 2091 with 101 wickets. And for all my admiration for Sobers as batsman, I do not rank him more technically accomplished, or more aesthetically satisfying than Woolley over many years. As I say, we should not try to weigh genius in balance - but I didn't start it. The cry has long since been heard,'Gary, the greatest ever.' Let us be grateful to enjoy and admire him for what he is, as cricketer and purveyor of delight.

If we could match him in a single wicket game what would be the odds on him to beat Keith Miller, Wally Hammond, Aubrey Faulkner? Would he be selected for representative cricket purely as a bowler; I am not at all certain that Keith Miler was not the most dangerous all round cricketer of our 'modern' times.

We can not drag into this argument of comparative values W.G. Grace who in his career took 2876 wickets and scored 54,904 runs. AS a bowler, he exploited highly tossed slow balls. He placed a fields-man at deep fine leg, then sent the batsman an inviting ball to leg - inviting him to hit the ball into the said long-leg fields-man's hands. One day, a University young batsman declined to fall into the obvious booby trap. He simply patted down the tempting full tosses for safe singles to leg, whereat Grace cried out; ' Young feller, if you keep on doin' that, I'll take myself off.'

The there was George Hirst's all-round magnificence of 1906 - 2385 runs and 208 wickets. He was asked at the end of the season if he thought the dual feat would ever be equalled. He replied,'Whoever does equal it will be tired.' Would Hirst be chosen for a Test match purely as a bowler or batsman? I doubt it; he inexplicably failed, except for one famous occasion, to do himself justice in Test matches.

It is a fascinating question - Sobers or Hammond, both miraculous slip fieldsmen, both dangerous bowlers with a new ball; but Hammond seldom put his heart in his bowling. At the pinch, at Adelaide in 1937, he took fivr for 57, on a flawless wicket with no atmosphere to help him. as helped Sobers at Lord's. And Hammond's victims included Bradman, caught and bowled 212. It was during this match that I asked Bill Voce which was the best ball to bowl to Bradman; and woefully he answered.'There is no ruddy ball to bowl at the Don.'

At Lord's in 1957, I stood in the Long Room watching Sobers batting. With me was S F Barnes, in his 85th year. After close inspection of Sobers, Barnes said, 'He likes flicking at the off side ball. I think I could get him out.'

'How?' I inquired.

I'd pitch him one on the leg stump going away.'

Then to draw him, I asked,' and what about Bradman?'

He replied unhesitatingly, " I'd have to bowl my best to get him out.' but the implication was that he could have.

But this Sobers is, in many ways, beyond compare, I fancy that, with the aid of Proctor and a wicket keeper, he could himself defeat the England XI on view the other day at Lord's. Not one player in the England team could have got a place in the Rest of The World XI, which is a solemn or ironical thought.​

 

[Sanz]

Wow !! Thanks for the post. It is just superb reading the history of the game.

 

[The Sean]

This is a fantastic thread - great to see so much debate and plenty of people delving into the historical archives of those lucky enough to see the great man in action.

I’m very much in the pro-Sobers-as-a-bowler camp, though I freely acknowledge that his average was ordinary and his strike rate quite poor. Like many others in the thread, I generally write this off to the style of play at the time – cricket was as a rule more defensive in the 1950s and 1960s and this was reflected in bowling figures, where economy rates were often excellent but strike rates were generally moderate, with only a few real exceptions such as Trueman. I’m also in the camp that believes Sobers’ numbers were harmed by his slow bowling, where he was no more than average at best and used very much as a stock bowler to tie up an end and support the likes of Gibbs.

Bowling left arm fast-medium, however, I am firmly of the belief that he was absolutely top quality – fast, hostile, clever, imaginative, and penetrative. That he regularly took the new ball in an attack that contained both Hall and Griffith says something, but what says more is the testimony of those who saw him in action and, more significantly, played with and against him. I was pleased to see someone quote the Graveney book earlier in the thread (as I thought I was the only person who owned that!) where Tom not only rated him second only to Davo as a left arm quick since WWII– this was written in 1982, pre-Akram - but also rated him second only to Alec Bedser as a purveyor of the art of fast-medium bowling. Graveney placed him above such champions as Botham, Fazal, Johnston, Bailey and Garner (who he rated in the fast-medium bracket as he considered Big Bird a better bowler when he dropped his pace). Benaud is another who rated him particularly highly, Cardus we know about, while the wonderful CLR James once said of Sobers that he was “apart from all else, at one point as dangerous a new ball bowler as any.”

Personally, in the pantheon of the left arm quicks through history I’d rate only Davo and Akram clearly above him, and I’m more than comfortable placing him alongside the likes of Ferris, Voce, Johnston, Goddard, Riley and Vaas on the next rung down.

 

[The Sean]

Australia:
Clark
Lee
Johnson
Casson

S.Africa:
Steyn
Ntini
Morkel
Kallis

Sri Lanka:
Murali
Mendis
Vaas
Malinga (when fit)

India:
Sharma
Khan
Kumble
Harbhajan

England:
Sidebottom
Panesar
Anderson
Broad

----

Don't see him able to replace anyone there. Those like Broad or Casson are in there own sides purely off potential, so to argue they'd replace them is pretty ridiculous. If it came to it, a Hoggard or Harmison would be better. Most of these teams have better alternatives than to have to bring Sobers in.

For mine, Sobers would make more of those sides than not. You could argue he'd be worthy of all of them in his prime.

 

[Cricket_God]

For mine, Sobers would make more of those sides than not. You could argue he'd be worthy of all of them in his prime.

as allrounder he would walk in but as a specialist bolwer it will be hard