Townsville Bulletin article.
You're more likely to find Sir Garfield Sobers on the golf course than around a cricket field these days.
And that’s exactly why the West Indies legend believes day-night Test matches are the best way forward for the sport.
The man regarded as the greatest all-rounder in cricket history made a whirlwind visit to Townsville yesterday for a sportsman lunch hosted by the Castle Hill Club at Ignatius Park College.
Sobers delighted local cricket fans with tales from his incredible 20-year first-class career at the long lunch officiated by renowned cricket commentator Peter Meares.
The 80-year-old Barbados resident is in the country to be a guest of Cricket Australia at the Gabba when the home side takes on Pakistan in the day-night Test from Thursday.
With a Test batting average of 57.78 including 26 centuries and 235 wickets bowling both pace and spin, Sobers understands the game like few others, but he admitted other passions now fill his time during the day when cricket is most often played.
Test matches are struggling for relevance across the world, most notably in Sobers’ native West Indies, and he believed the day-night contests would help open up cricket to a new generation.
“I am looking forward to it because I think it’s probably the way to go for the future,” Sobers said
“I believe there are a lot of countries who will benefit from it. I know we have fallen behind so badly and we don’t get many spectators watching cricket in the West Indies anymore.
“I have taken to golf and I spend most of my time on the golf course, but I still watch a lot of cricket. We’re very fortunate that cricket now is at night at home when it’s early morning in Australia
“I can watch cricket on those occasions and I watch it quite a bit, but after 12 o’clock at home, I don’t watch any cricket at all. I’m on the golf course.
“I think day-night cricket will help it tremendously because we’ll get the young kids saying to their parents: ‘I want to go and watch the cricket’ and being in the evening they’re not at school, so take them out. I think it will help.”
Sobers hasn’t visited Australia in more than 30 years, but he said he has a great respect for the way the game is played Down Under, having spent four seasons with South Australia in the Sheffield Shield in the early 1960s.
“I enjoyed playing here. I like the attitude and they play the game very hard,” he said.
“I think I learned a lot by playing here against the Australians. I played in their league and I enjoyed it too.”
Sobers still speaks with an obvious passion for cricket, but he does his best to avoid the inevitable questions about his status as one of the greatest players of all time.
“I am grateful to the people who think I am and I am contented the way I am,” Sobers offered modestly.
“I played the game not to become the greatest of anything. I played the game because I loved it and I was playing for my country.
“I don’t think at any stage that I ever played an innings for me. It was all for the team that I played for wherever that was.”
First Published In The Townsville Bulletin.