Barbados and Lord’s unite in farewell to Sir Garfield Sobers

Nick HoultWed, July 29, 2026 at 6:11 PM UTC

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Garfield Sobers’ coffin is carried during his state funeral - Kerrie Eversley/AP

Sir Clive Lloyd recalled the first time, as a young player in Guyana, he saw the graceful walk to the crease that personified Sir Garfield Sobers. “His shirt unbuttoned, leaning forward, walking with elegance and confidence. It was inspiring.”

Lloyd was addressing Sobers’s state funeral at the Kensington Oval in Barbados, which was streamed live in the Long Room at Lord’s where the sun beat down on a cloudless afternoon – just like a day of Test cricket in Bridgetown.

Marylebone Cricket Club placed a portrait of Sobers next to the double doors through which Sobers walked out to produce some of the deeds that made him the greatest all-rounder, a man who was eulogised by prime ministers from across the Caribbean, bishops, old team-mates, those he encouraged and nurtured such as Brian Lara and Sobers’s two sons Matthew and Daniel.

Rihanna, the only other Bajan who can claim more global fame than Sobers, was at the Kensington Oval.

Rihanna (left) and Mia Mottley (right), Barbados’ prime minister, attended the service - Kerrie Eversley/AP

She sat next to Mia Mottley, the island’s prime minister, who gave a rousing speech about how Sobers’s cricketing achievements fired the pride of a nation that declared independence in 1966, the year he dominated a tour to England and averaged 99 with the bat and 24 with the ball.

She also paid tribute to the West Indies team that beat Pakistan in a Test match on Tuesday by 90 runs on what would have been Sobers’s 90th birthday, finishing the game in four days so they could be at the funeral. Mottley said she had told captain Roston Chase, another Bajan, to “keep trucking on, keep winning,” in Sobers’s honour.

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Members of the honour guard raise the cricket legend’s coffin - Kerrie Eversley/AP

The High Commission of Barbados organised the streaming of the funeral in the Long Room fittingly so because Lord’s was a special place for Sobers. He averaged 95 from five Tests. In 1966 he scored 163, saving his team from 95 for five by putting on 274 with his cousin David Holford. He rounded it off with 150 in his final Lord’s Test – the last of his 26 Test centuries – in 1973, an innings that was composed through bloodshot eyes and a monumental hangover after a night drinking with an old team-mate in London. No curfews in those days or camera phones to catch out sports stars. Sobers had to retire hurt on 131 because he felt so ill, much to the amusement of his team-mates on the balcony. “The only thing that’ll help me now is a port and brandy mixed,” he told them. He downed it in one and Rohan Kanhai, the captain, ordered another and added: “Make it a big one this time.” Sobers went out again to reach his 150 and West Indies won by an innings.

Lord’s is decked out in London Spirit livery for the Hundred and it is hard to think of a cricketer who would have commanded higher franchise fees in this era than Sobers with his ability to do it all: bowl orthodox and wrist spin or pace, catch flies close in or in the outfield, and bat with grace and power. Perhaps matches lasting 100 balls would have been too easy for such a genius, and only the challenge of Test cricket could bring out those magical feats. He only played one one-day international and made a duck, caught behind off Chris Old.

Sobers goes big at the County Ground - Patrick Eagar/Getty Images

Lara, who described him as his “mentor and dad”, recalled when he scored 277 in Sydney he was chastised by Sobers for giving it away, for not going on to break his then Test record of 365. He listened, and did so 13 months later in Antigua, Lara recalling the “unique walk” as Sobers strode out to the middle to shake his hand when he broke his record.

Lloyd remembered a humble man who would “give you his last dollar’ and loved the joys of life. He introduced him to whisky as a young player and how when they batted together to win a Test against India in double-quick time, Sobers was delighted because by finishing early he could go and “watch the 1,000 Guineas” race. “That shows you how confident he was about winning”.

The personal touch came from the sons recalling how their father would beat them at sport whether on the golf course holing from the fairway aged 87 or at table tennis. Matthew paid tribute to his life advice, how his father told him he had “two ears, one mouth; use them in that proportion”. Listen to others.

Both Lara and Lloyd called on administrators to use Sobers’s legacy as a way to revive West Indies cricket. That will be a difficult challenge. There was a sense of the closing of a chapter on the greatness of West Indies cricket with Sobers’s funeral.

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Sports”