He has earned the praise of Sir Donald Bradman as a batsman. He has set Dennis Lillee's hair on end as a bowler.

From Wisden's, the cricketer's almanac and bible to cricket afficionado Sir Michael Parkinson to the core of world cricket, the paying spectators, he has been and is universally acclaimed as the finest cricketer the world has seen in modern times.

By birth a native of sun-soaked Barbados, Garfield Sobers was born on July 28, 1936 with an extra finger on each of his hands. Although these were removed at birth, they were, perhaps, an omen, an indication of the remarkable facility he would demonstrate at sports. In golf, football (soccer) and basketball he excelled, to the extent of representing his island in all of them.

In cricket, he emulated later sub-continentals with a first-class debut at a 'tender' 16 years of age, graduating seemingly effortlessly to the Test arena the following year.

Beginning as a southpaw bowler, he again displayed an alarming versatility. As a spinner, he could tweak his wrists with the best of them and he was certainly no slouch at turning the fingers either. But it was usually as a fast-medium pace seamer that he opened attacks.

In a career spanning 93 Tests, he sent down 21599 deliveries which cost him 7999 runs but bought 235 of those oh-so-precious wickets. For the non-number crunchers, this translates to a fairly-healthy average of 34.03 (in comparison to, say, Sir Beefy Botham of Taunton with an average of 28.40) - and striking at a rate of 91.9

The figures came down in one-dayers - because he only ever played in one! Again facing the omnipresent English in 1973, his sixty-three deliveries took a wicket - that of Chris Old - at a cost of 31 runs; average 31.0, S.R. 63

Bowling averages

Note the 10-wicket "bag" in the last stat. Even for a dedicated specialist bowler at the top of his/her game, this is something of a career dream, an achievement fully deserving of a celebratory night on the tiles. For a 'jack-of-all-trades' all-rounder. to accomplish the feat...

"...as a bowler, [he was] merely superb" says Wisden's, "As a batsman, he was great..." Within four years, of his introduction to an unsuspecting world, he set up the landmark 365 score (batting against Pakistan), a high-water mark that was not to be approached any individual talent less than a Brian Lara, more than thirty years later.

To the BBC's everlasting pride and joy, one of Sobers' many stunning achievements was captured on film for posterity to gape and glory over.

As captain of Nottinghamshire in 1968, he was after quick runs against Glamorgan at Swansea - and he got them!

Each of an over's regulation six deliveries - from a seamer experimenting with a memorable but VERY short career as a spinner - went past the boundary ropes for six (the penultimate one was caught at the boundary but the fielder decided to topple over!)

The last ball, by the way, was not recovered until the following day when a schoolboy found it some distance beyond the grounds.

Then, in 1971, a characteristically-uncompromising Australian side were taking no prisoners against a Rest of the World XI replacing the Sth. Africans down under. Their tour was cancelled by anti-apartheid pressure and a 'scratch' replacement team had been formed, comprised of the very best not-Australia had to offer.

The Aussies, with themselves no shortage of colossally-competitive personae like Dennis Lillee, Doug Walters and Greg Chappel among their number, had allowed a drawn first Test and given out a thorough drubbing in the second - this to the likes of Sunil Gavaskar, two Pollocks (Peter and Graeme), Tony Greig, Bishan Bedi and Zaheer Abbas!

During the 3rd Test, Sobers spoke to the Australian captain, Ian Chappel: "You've got a boy here called Lillee. Every time I have gone in, all I have got from him is bouncers. I want you to tell him that I can bowl quick too, and I can bowl bouncers. So watch out for me when he comes in."

On the fifth ball, Sobers recalls "I ran up and I bowled this bouncer, and it whizzed past Dennis and he looked at me and he had turned completely pink. I knew by that time that I had got him. The next ball, I took the weight off, and he slogged it in the air and Greig caught him."

When it came time to bat, Walters says "We had a pretty good bowling attack but he made them look second-rate and that's what good batsmen always do. He hit the ball with tremendous power and everyone was hoping that it didn't come towards them and the bowlers were hoping it didn't come back to them as well."

Peter Pollock: " He just batted for a few hours but during that short time he dominated the Aussies. It wasn't just the runs he scored but the manner in which he scored them that was so attractive. Especially the manner in which he tamed Lillee when he took the third new ball: Sobers hit him out of the attack in a matter of few overs.

He just hit four after four and some of them were so thunderous that they would hit the concrete and come back into the field of play.

Among the thronging fans present in the MCG stands in Melbourne was a certain Sir Donald Bradman who declared the innings of 254 he'd witnessed to be the greatest he had seen in Australia.

History suggests that Sobers simply had to be where the epochal action was. Soit was that, in December of 1960, he was at the Gabba in Brisbane where his innings of 132 and 14, combined with a 2-113 and 0-30 bowling figures helped WIndies put the seal on the first tied Test in history (not a draw, in whch neither team loses all batsmen or scores more than the other; the scores here were exactly equal at the close of play).

The only other instance of a tied Test match again involved Australia, this time facing India at Chennai (Madras) in 1986

Bowling and batting stupendously was not the end of Sobers' talents, however. As Wisden said: "His catching close to the wicket may have been equalled but never surpassed, and he was a brilliant fielder anywhere."

Batting and Fielding Averages

As captain of the West Indies, it could, perhaps, be argued that he began their freewheeling style of cricket domination but he was nothing if not sporting; confident in the abilities of his team, a generous declaration at Port Of Spain allowed England to scrape a much-needed win.

On April 5, 1974 Garry Sobers ended his stellar career as he had begun it two decades earlier, fighting the good fight for his country against England. The following year, the country bestowed on him the Commonwealth's highest honour

As something of postscriptum, it has recently been argued by Stephen Gelb (at http://blogs.cricinfo.com/diffstrokes/archives/stephen_gelb/) that, as South African wunderkind Jacques Kallis has overtaken Sobers in both the batting and bowling stakes, he is now The Greatest.

In making this assertion, he compares the pair's performances:"
"Sobers’ record was 93 tests, 160 innings (21 n.o.), 8032 runs at 57.78 with 26 hundreds, 30 fifties, best 365*. His 235 wickets were at 34.03 runs each, one every 91.9 balls (surprisingly high), best 6/73, 109 catches./

Kallis to date[31.07.08]: 122 tests, 205 innings (33 n.o), 9681 runs at 56.28, 30 hundreds, 47 fifties, best 189*, SR 43.9. Plus 236 wickets at 31.25, strike-rate 66.8 balls, best 6/54, and 127 catches. After 93 tests, Kallis had slightly fewer runs than Sobers – 7337 – and a lot fewer wickets – 189, but averaged 56.87 and 31.6"

He goes on to say "Kallis is not Ponting or Lara or Sehwag. He is not Viv Richards or Barry Richards or indeed Garry Sobers. He came into the South African team when '90 for 5' was our all-too-regular scoreline. In his seventh Test, he had to bat all day against a full-strength Australian attack in Melbourne to save the match. This is how his playing personality was shaped.

Kallis took the approach of Rahul 'The Wall' Dravid, the path of Steve Waugh, not Mark – eliminating risk, protecting his wicket, allowing others to bat freely by being 'Mr Reliable'. Calling this selfish is to misunderstand the interplay that cricket imposes between team needs and personal goals.

Calling it slow or boring is to ignore one of cricket's delights, the inch-by-inch battle for domination, as different from the Lara or Sehwag approach as trench warfare is from mounted charges, but no less enthralling. Criticising Kallis for not batting like Lara is like criticising Thelonius Monk for not playing piano like Duke Ellington – it is beside the point".

I believe this to be a specious argument. Aside from the belief that you can only judge excellence by number-crunching (and Kallis IS excellent, beyond any argument) not greatness, Sobers was just a capable of dominating with any Boycott-like stonewalling as he demonstrated to the Australians.