A giant has fallen, President Dr Irfaan Ali said in a message marking the death of Sir Garfield St Aubrun Sobers, describing the West Indies cricket legend as the game’s most glorious master.
Sobers died at the age of 89, Cricket West Indies announced on Friday. He played for the West Indies for 20 years, making his first and last Test appearances in 1954 and 1974 respectively against England.
President Ali said Sobers adorned the game with a flamboyance that was pure, uncut poetry, and described him as the greatest all-rounder the game has ever known. He said Sobers’s batting was pure genius, his close fielding breathtaking, and his bowling, whether pace or spin, a master class in cunning and control.
The President said Sobers’s significance transcended the boundary, noting that in the early days of West Indian independence he was a colossus who embodied the region’s identity and carried the hopes of a people still finding their voice.
Guyana, with its rich cricketing heart, salutes this beloved son of Barbados and the wider West Indies, Ali said, adding that Sobers belongs in the pantheon of great West Indians and remains the standard by which all others are measured.
The President extended Guyana’s deepest condolences to Sobers’s family and shared in the loss felt by the people of Barbados, saying a jewel has been stolen from their crown. He said Sobers’s spirit will live on in the sound of leather on willow and in the dreams of every young boy or girl who picks up a cricket ball for the first time.
