A genius celebrates another milestone

Sir Garfield Sobers

The “greatest cricketer on Earth or Mars” (as Sparrow extolled him in his 1965 calypso) passed another landmark last Thursday.

It was chronological, his 75th birthday, and it came as a timely reminder of the almost universal acceptance of the genius that made Sir Garry Sobers the finest all-rounder the game has ever known.

“Timely” and “almost” are words that would not have been necessary until just a few days earlier when the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced the