The day we nullified Gary the Great

GENIUS . . . Sobers hits out in typically dashing style.

CRICKET: MEL Whittle retired from local cricket last season at the age of 63. Here he talks to Keith McHugh about some of the highlights of his long and colourful career

THE Central Lancashire League had some great professionals in the old days and the West Indian legend Garry Sobers was undoubtedly the best of them. He was the complete all-rounder.

Even though he was in his 40s when he played at Littleborough, Sobers could still bowl quickly, but it was what he was doing with the ball which was so incredible.

Despite his age, he would bowl at around the mid-80s miles per hour and move it all over the place. How could you bat against that?

As everyone knows, he was a great batsman, too. I remember once, when I was playing for Crompton, seeing Sobers hit a square drive off Mike Richardson, our professional at the time, and before the fielder at square leg had hit the ground the ball had reached the boundary!

But there was one occasion when we at Crompton devised a plan to stop him.

We decided to hang in there and get as many runs as possible and I seem to recall we scrambled about 130 from 35 eight-ball overs.

Our captain was a lad called Dennis Scott and immediately Sobers came to the crease, he told our side to give him a single.

We continued this policy throughout the Littleborough innings and they were out for 107, with Sobers unbeaten on 62.

He could not combat our tactics because it is a big ground at Crompton and all our fielders were on the boundary to concede singles against him.

Don’t forget, he was about 40-odd and his legs had gone and other than trying to hit sixes he could not do anything about it.

I was fortunate to get Sobers out on one occasion, bowling him with an inducker, after which he asked me: “Where did you learn to bowl a ball like that?” He really was a great man.

I also remember Sobers playing for Radcliffe. They were at Royton, who had their own top professional in Cec Pepper. There were about 3,000 people watching and Pepper had a huge shout for lbw early in Sobers’ innings.

The umpire gave him not out and he went on to make a few and when both players were at the bar after the game, Pepper asked the umpire why he had turned down his appeal for leg-before.

Apparently, the umpire said ‘listen here, sonny, a lot of people paid a lot of money to watch this bloke bat and I wasn’t giving him out so quickly.’

Cec just laughed, but he was a bit like that — very different to how aggressive he was on the field.