T Becca: Sobers in the wings (20 Mar 1998)

March 20, 1998

Sobers in the wings

Tony Becca , Senior Sport Editor

CRICKET: St. Johns: Sir Gary Sobers is one of the few great West Indies players who has never served West Indies cricket as manager, selector or coach, and fans around the region are asking why is it that the former captain, the greatest West Indies player of all, and the greatest the world has ever seen has never been used.

"You ask him," said a board member recently.

Sobers has been asked and the answer is revealing. According to the Great One, he is ready and willing - if he is wanted. He is however, not prepared to ask for anything.

"I am not a watcher of cricket. I am not a player who will come to cricket, sit down and watch cricket - not if I can do something else," Sobers said.

"When I took up golf, I played a lot of golf, a lot of former West Indies cricketers said I am not interested in West Indies cricket and that, it seemed, went through the whole system.

"I am the sort of person that I am not going to do anything out of the ordinary to make people believe that I am interested. If they think that I am good enough, if they think that I am capable and if they want to know if I am interested, ask me, or do something about it. Find out, but don't just say, oh, Gary Sobers plays a lot of golf and he is not interested in West Indies cricket.

"I am not going to come and sit down at cricket, or sit down behind anybody to show, or to make them believe that I am interested in West Indies cricket, because unless you come to ground and you sit down with certain people and talk to them and talk about what players are doing or what they are not doing, you are not interested. If you don't do that, you are not interested - and I am not that type of person.

"I like my golf and I enjoy my golf and I will play my golf. As long as I get an opportunity to play golf, I will play golf. But if I had something to do in cricket, I would work something out. What I know is that West Indies cricket is not going anywhere at the present moment. It is at a standstill and although we might beat people, we are not really beating them - we are asking them to lose to us, and some of them have beaten themselves."

Looking at the selection process, Sir Gary said that apart from exposing young players, it is important to look for quality players - players who have the ability to perform at the highest level of the game.

"We have to understand that when we look at cricket and we see performances by batsmen or bowlers, it is not how many wickets they take, or how many runs they make: it is how they take their wickets and how they make their runs - how the batsmen get out.

"Batsmen get out in certain circumstances because they play stupid shots that normally they wouldn't play and bowlers sometimes get wickets they do not deserve. You can't simply look at statistics. But then you have selectors who are picking players with statistics and not quality players.

"When you are picking a team, many things must be taken into consideration - including under what circumstances is this man getting runs, in what circumstances is a bowler getting wickets, how did he get the batsman out - was the batsman covering up, was he beating him with good balls, was he making him commit himself into bad shots, or was the batsman taking a chance, was he looking for runs and did he get him out looking for runs.

"You got to think about a lot of things. Was the batsman, for example, the one who did not score a century but who you believe is better, was he batting in difficult conditions, was he batting in difficult circumstances and against good bowling, or did he have some bad luck - did he get a bad decision?"

"If the answer is yes, then you have to give him a chance - or another chance."

According to Sobers, unless you do these things, unless you think about these things when selecting teams, you are fooling yourself, you are fooling the players and you are not improving West Indies cricket.

Source :: The Jamaica Gleaner (https://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/)