Sir Garfield Sobers was given a full state funeral at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, the stadium in Barbados which is home to a pavilion named after the greatest all-rounder ever in cricket.<\/p>\n
The former West Indies captain\u2019s funeral was held on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Sobers, the graceful Caribbean master whose world-record Test innings of 365 not out as a 21-year-old set him on the path to a legendary cricket career, died on July 17. He was 89.<\/p>\n
Draped in the national flag of Barbados, the coffin travelled from the Parliament Buildings in Bridgetown on a gun carriage. Upon entering the Kensington Oval, the carriage passed through an emotional guard of honour made of raised cricket bats.<\/p>\n
Sir Clive Lloyd, his former teammate, described Sobers as \u201ca man who lived in the hearts and minds of Caribbean people and who became a source of inspiration to millions throughout the world\u201d.<\/p>\n
An entertaining left-handed batter and bowler of seam and spin, Sobers played 93 Tests between 1954 and 1974, scoring 8,032 runs and taking 235 wickets.<\/p>\n
Lloyd and fellow West Indies legends Brian Lara and Desmond Haynes were among those who spoke at the state service of thanksgiving, which was also attended by Barbados President Jeffrey Bostic, Prime Minister Mia Mottley and Barbadian music superstar Rihanna.<\/p>\n
Current West Indies Test captain Roston Chase, who comes from Barbados, vice-captain Jomel Warrican and the current side\u2019s Barbadian players were also in attendance.<\/p>\n
\u201cSir Garfield Sobers was not merely the outstanding cricketer of his generation,\u201d Lloyd said. \u201cHe brought to the beautiful game a rare combination of brilliance, imagination, courage and joy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lara too made an emotional speech. \u201cThis is not a sad moment,\u201d Lara said of his mentor. \u201cThis is a moment for us to celebrate and I hope you feel the same. Today we celebrate the remarkable life of the greatest all-round cricketer. We celebrate a man who gave so much to his family, to Barbados, to the West Indies and all of us who had the privilege of knowing him.\u201d<\/p>\n
During his stint at Nottinghamshire in 1968, Sobers became the first player to hit a six off all six balls in an over in a first-class match.<\/p>\n
Mottley described Sobers as \u201ca man who if he had not achieved any of those great feats on the cricket field would have been immortalised by his community as a good man and a great man\u201d.<\/p>\n
Reverend Canon Guy Hewitt read out a message from King Charles during the service. \u201cHistory is distinguished with sporting champions whose records have rightly commanded respect across generations,\u201d the message read. \u201cThere have been far fewer, however, whose name along brings a smile to people\u2019s faces across Barbados, the Caribbean and the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n
\u201cSir Garfield Sobers belongs very firmly in the latter category. I send my deepest sympathies to Sir Garry\u2019s family as they come to terms with this great loss.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir Garfield Sobers was given a full state funeral at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, the stadium in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,257233,105],"class_list":["post-568274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sir-garfield-sobers-state-funeral","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}