Is Sobers cricket's Muhammad Ali?
Thu, Jun 9, '16
It was 50 years ago next week, and the gods of sport are sharing the same rickety bench in the West Indies dressing room at Lord's: the planet's loudest mouth and cricket's prettiest assassin, Muhammad Ali and Garfield St Aubrun Sobers. Not unusually, the former is doing his damnedest to dominate attention. Undeterred, the latter looks him squarely in the eyes - respectfully, smilingly, unflinchingly; an equal in every meaningful sense.
A few days earlier, the greatest cricketer who ever drew breath had begun his definitive campaign. Sublimely stylish, cooler than a frozen cucumber and more or less a team in his own right, the Great Garfield had struck 161 at Old Trafford to help administer England's first three-day home defeat since the Second World War. In doing so, he also kicked off the purplest patch in Test history.
Next up, in a match intermittently watched by Ali, was a Lord's hundred that did not so much ward off impending defeat as render it laughable. Come campaign's end his swagbag contained 722 runs, 20 wickets and ten catches: still an unchallenged record for a Test series. Maybe Ali's Instagram message was bang-on. Maybe the impossible really is "nothing". In which case, is it too fanciful to propose that he drew some inspiration from the Great Garfield's breath-snatching brilliance beneath Father Time's approving gaze?
The planet's loudest mouth and cricket's prettiest assassin had appreciably more in common, of course, than floating like butterflies and stinging like bees. They were both outsiders who scaled an unprecedented pinnacle of excellence; both dazzling symbols of the triumphant unprivileged. Both, furthermore, exerted an impact that reverberated far beyond the ropes: one knowingly, one warily.
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