Golf is the best sport I've ever played: Garry Sobers

It was quite an evening on Sunday. A memorable one that sent some of the yesteryear greats in Indian cricket down memory lane.

When legendary West Indies all-rounder Garfield Sobers was in the city, his Indian contemporaries including the captain of that 1970-71 successful tour of the West Indies, Ajit Wadekar, wicketkeeper Farokh Engineer, Kenia Jayantilal, former Test cricketers Nari Contractor, Madhav Apte, Karsan Ghavri, Dilip Doshi and Dilip Vengsarkar cannot be far behind.

“Captain, captain, how are you?” Engineer called out, trying to catch Sobers's attention as the West Indian great was exchanging pleasantries with another known face at a south Mumbai hotel on Sunday.

And, when Wadekar greeted his rival captain, Sobers could not hide his joy. “Ajit Wadekar, how are you? Good to see you,” said Sobers before giving him a hug.

Sobers was in the city to support 'The Man Who Knew Infinity', a biopic on mathematics genius Ramanujan.

Genius is the middle name of Sobers. The legend from Barbados, still regarded as the finest all-rounder the game has ever seen, said “geniuses are born and not made”.

“I don't know much about genius. They keep telling me that I am one. I don't know what I have done, how I have become a genius,” the 79-year-old said in a conversation with Devika Bhise, who plays the wife of Ramanujan in the movie.

“All I know is whatever I have achieved, I have achieved through the ability I was probably born with. I believe geniuses are born with ability. And, ability alone doesn't work. You have to work hard to make it work. I think geniuses are born. I don't think they are made. They have to recognise what they have and they have to work hard to achieve whatever they want to achieve. Nothing is given to you on a platter. I have known a lot of players I have played with. They had the ability but did not recognise that they not only had the ability but they were geniuses. And, they thought everything will fall into place. No. You have to work hard. Once you have done that, you will achieve.”

'NOT FOR RECORDS' 
Sobers's records speak for himself, and the genius that he was. He played in 93 Tests between 1954 and 1974, and had a dream statistics of 8.032 runs with 26 hundreds and took 235 wickets besides holding 109 catches. He held the record for the highest individual Test score – 365 not out – before it was broken by Brian Lara.

“My moment in the game of cricket is not records. I did not want to do things to be the greatest. My goals were built around my team. What the team wanted me to do, I did. I could bowl in three different ways, could field anywhere, could bat anywhere. If they needed an opening bat, I'd go and open. If they needed someone to open the bowling, I'd open the bowling though I started as a left-arm spinner. I did all those things,” he said.

“Records, to me, is not the way to go. If they come in the way of helping your side to be successful, then I am all for it. People set records and break them. To me that is not part of the game. That is trying to make you proud and forget the team. Throughout my career, whether I played for the Police, Barbados, Nottinghamshire, South Australia, West Indies, you will find I always performed when the team was down. Not when it was up. I was a team man. And whatever I achieved, I achieved through that. And, I think a lot of people did recognise that. Whatever genius I had, I worked hard to make it that way.”

'BROTHER MORE TALENTED' 
Hard work, Sobers did. But he insisted that his elder brother Gerry was more talented than he was but was unlucky not to play for the West Indies.

He narrated: “As a young boy, I believed in sport. My whole life was built around sports. In Barbados, I must have played seven different sports for the island. I was not an academic. I believed sports was very very important. And that was the way I was brought up.

“My father died when I was five. My mother had six of us. My eldest brother (George) was 11 and he had to leave school early and go to work to help the family. Therefore, we were not exposed to the kind of education that the boys of today and the people of today are. You had to play in those days. When you have six kids, and when mother is not working, it was very difficult to find money to pay.

“I recognised that sport was the thing that I wanted to do, as did all my brothers. As a matter of fact, when I tell people that I was not as good a batsman as my brother Gerry, they still don't believe it. He was very good. He was even better than Seymour Nurse. And, you have seen Seymour Nurse because Gerry and Seymour Nurse were on par and they always chose Nurse because he was an opening batsman. But Gerry came at the wrong time.

“I was very fortunate. I came at the right time. I came when it was a little bit easier to get into the West Indies team. Or even a Barbados team because in those days Barbados was so strong that they could have taken the world on. The 3Ws (Worrell, Walcott and Weekes) were all from Barbados. We had Roy Marshall, Denis Atkinson, Conrad Hunte, they were all top class. I was fortunate and I worked hard at the game because a lot of people used to admire me. And, they let me know. I have heard people talking about 'that little boy, he has got a lot of ability'. I worked very hard to achieve what I achieved.”

Sobers also gave thumbs up to Twenty20 cricket, and the Indian Premier League, which features a lot of West Indies cricketers. In fact, West Indians are a regular in the Twenty20 leagues the world over.

'CAN'T BLAME THEM FOR PLAYING IN IPL'
Speaking about the changes that the game is currently seeing, Sobers said they were good for the game.

“It is very difficult to make an assessment of those things. Of course, there's got to be changes. I think some of the changes are for the better. I believe that the players who are playing the game should be able to accept what they think is right and what is wrong.

“Like in the West Indies, it is very difficult to criticise the players who want to come and play in the IPL because most of them come from very humble backgrounds. And, if they find an opportunity where they can better themselves, and the betterment of their family, then you can't blame them for that. I also believe that it's good addition for the game of cricket for many countries.

“For instance in England, without the Twenty20, many counties would have closed their doors. Also even in our country, without Twenty20, the West Indies cricket would have folded up because when we have Test matches on, we have nobody come and watch the game. Unless it is against England and Australia. And with England, they have something like 10,000 spectators. You find, particularly in Barbados, a crowd of 12000, 10,000 will be English and the other 2,000 will be Barbadians.

“I think the changes have been good but the players have to learn to know how to accept and never to forget their countries because Test cricket will always be the utmost and should always strive to be better at that. Once you are good in that situation, you will be able to produce results. If you work hard, you will be able to perform and you will find that your country will also benefit.

“Players these days are retiring before their time to retire because their whole idea is to go and play in the IPL. I can't blame them. One doesn't know how long they will be in the game of cricket. When you see an opportunity where you can help yourself, then by all means do that. But look at the game in its right perspective. And, I believe that in times to come, a lot of players will recognise that Test cricket is still the No. 1 cricket in the world and Twenty20 is entertainment.”

GOLF, THE BEST SPORT EVER
For someone who has achieved so much in cricket, Sobers said that golf “is the best sport I have ever played”.

Looking at photographs, there is not much difference between Sobers's bat swing and that with a golf club.

However, Sobers said that initially he did not love golf. When he first tried his hand at the sport in the early 1960s, he missed hitting the ball. But gradually, he fell in love with it. And now, it has become and integral part of his life.

He recounted his love affair with golf. “Golf is a wonderful game. When I got into the West Indies team, Sonny Ramdhin, the great little mystery bowler, started off his life as a caddie. He said to me one day, 'why don't you go play some golf?'. I have never been to a golf course. In Barbados, there was one golf course and it was built by the merchants. It was a nine-hole. The only way you could go there was if you were going to be a caddie. And I did not want to be a caddie. “I said to Sonny, 'That stupid game, you hit the ball, and when you lose it, you find it and you hit it again'.

“The last day in Australia when we had that fantastic series (1960-61), we were playing in Canberra. We were staying at a hotel with a golf course. Because I was not playing, Sonny told me to go along with him for a game of golf. He put this little ball down. I swung at this ball, and you would not believe it, I missed it. I look up at myself, 'bloody hell, you hit all the moving ball and you miss the still ball?' I tried again and missed again.

“Wes Hall showed me how to hit it. He was making sure he was not going to miss it. He took 10 pounds of the turf out of the ground and the ball was still flying in the air (laughs).

“I started to take the game up and I found it to be a beautiful game. To me, golf is the best sport I have ever played. I represented my country in table tennis, basketball, soccer and cricket. And, I loved golf. I don't think there is a better sport. Because, it takes only one person. It is the only sport in the world where you can play by yourself. If you are honest, you will say, 'I have had a 65 or a 110, whatever'. It brings out the character in you. I am very glad I play golf. When I am home, I play golf six days a week. If I don't find a partner, I play alone. It keeps me fit also.”