Garry Sobers: Fielder Extraordinaire
Mon, July 28 ’25
Garry Sobers was a phenomenal field player. He started playing as a teenager test cricket and was assigned to the Outfield where he had a surprisingly strong rug for someone who was so young. His athletics stood out and his pin-point accuracy when returning the ball to the Wicketkeeper was remarkable.
Evolution from outfield to close-in fielding
While he was given experience and seniority, it was quickly recognized what a great close-in field player he was and was quickly placed in the briefs, usually on the second slip next to Rohan Kanhai at the first slip, while for Lance Gibbs the big off-spinner close to the leg side. It was in this last position that his reputation grew and he took a lot of spectacular catches because of his razor -sharp reflexes and creepy anticipatory intuition. Cricket connoisseurs remind us that he took off Gibbs to fire Barrington and Illingworth respectively to dismiss Barrington and Illingworth.
Historical performance
Sobers only became the third player in the history of the test cricket that 100 catches took when he caught Brian Hastings from Lance Gibbs in Sabina Park in 1972 in his 82nd test match. At that time, only Wally Hammond and Colin Cowdrey had taken 100 catches in test cricket.
Since then, many players with the proliferation of test matches have taken 100 catches – a few have even taken 200 catches – but very little have taken the amount of spectacular catches that Sobers did, many of which had to be seen to be believed.
The partnership Sobers-Gibbs
Eknath Solkar was known for his field in the forward short leg at the same time when Garry Sobers was behind the backward bun, and in the 61 -match matches he played with Lance Gibbs, Sobers got 39 catches from Lance’s Bowlen, which is most of the west of every bowler.
Here are three examples of the Velder Extraordinaire in action:
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