West Indies Cricket Fans

stats and damm lies cyan be the same.

how many tests sobers play in Pak? in fact I can remember 2 in 1958-59. I cant recall westindies playing pakistan again in sobers career.

sobers played some tests against NZ in 1956, 2 or 3, in NZ. he was 17 or 18 years old.

next time it was 15 years later in the westindies...4 or 5 tests!

some experts argue that sobers wasnt stimulated to play against the simplicites of NZ.

but when in dat later series NZ had westindies back against the wall, in dire straights at the QPO no less...not one of Sobers favourite grounds... what happened?

dats wat I am talking about. for whatever reason sobers did not appear to take NZ seriously. but when they threatened to defeat westindies sobers stopped them cold

sobers played all of 2 test matches in pakistan and yu make a case of capital punishment out of it.

I will searching later for any other instance when he may have played unofficially in Pakistan and if he did wat were the results!

Pakistan had a great bowler in thos days by the name of Fazal mahmood. he was the Charminder Vass of early Pakistan, excellent, brilliant and could be unplayable in his home conditions.

in 1958 in the westindies Sobers had made Fazal and the Pak Bowling pay an enormours price with a deluge of runs, a river of runs...a flow of runs that by then had been seen only once or twice before in a single series.

I suspect that the pakistanis went out of their way during those 2 return tests in 1959 to get back at Sobers in their home conditiosn for all he had done to them in the westindies.

so whether he was aware of it or not I would wager that there was a special effort everytime Sobers came to the wicket in those 2 games. and if he was not aware of it..and I dont see why he would not have been..he was toast.

he was toast anyway for he did not score in those games

historically speaking there was intense controversy about that 1959 series in pakistan and sobers lack of scoring. Pak officiating came under great scrutinity for the manner of Sobers dismissals in those tests

there actually were 3 tests not 2. Sobers batted 5 times in those 3 games and the first 3 innings went like this:

LBW Fazal 0 batting #4

LBW Fazal 14 batting #6 (Alexander may have been hiding him?)

LBW Fazal 29

Sobers next 2 innings were..second innings of that second test which westindies lost for 2 losses in a row was...c Fazal bowled Mahmood for 45..which is confusing. (there was also a mahmood Hussein in there..a fast bowler)

and in his last innings of that tour, which was the first innings of the third test which westindies won by an innings, Sobers was bowled Nasim (ul-Ghani) 72.

in the first test Sobers batted as already noted at 4 and 6. in the second test ghe batted at #3 and # 5, and in the third test he batted at #4 again.

westindies had trouble with openers and injury, so much so that Hunte and JK Holt opened in the first test...Holt and kanhai in the second -test first innings, Kanhai and Alexander in the second innings.

by the third test it was Alexander and M R Bynoe as Holt and Hunte failed in the previous games!

Alexander and Bynoe did not do any better, but Kanhai scored a double and westindies pounded Pakistan by an innings and some

Bump if anyone interested

BallOil wrote:Bump if anyone interested

you are wicked chap...you like to see Westdem get beat up over this Kallis/Sobers comparison.!!

Googley wrote:

BallOil wrote:Bump if anyone interested

you are wicked chap...you like to see Westdem get beat up over this Kallis/Sobers comparison.!!

who me? If only Panditji was here to vouch for me

you gotta watch dem pandits!!

Googs...looks like our pandit gaan pon a holy mission

BallOil wrote:Googs...looks like our pandit gaan pon a holy mission

must be stuck in the missionary position!