As thousands rose to their feet inside a hushed Kensington Oval, applause echoed around the ground that had witnessed so many of his greatest triumphs.
For one final time, Barbados saluted The Right Excellent Sir Garfield Sobers, not as the world’s greatest cricketer, but as its beloved and own “Sir Garry”.
It was a deeply emotional climax to yesterday’s state funeral, where Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley led a grateful nation in paying tribute to the National Hero whose extraordinary talent, humility and character transformed him into a symbol of Barbadian excellence.
Under clouds that threatened, but never opened, as if in reverence to the 89-year-old batting genius from the Bayland, the Prime Minister called on Barbadians to honour the legacy of Sir Garry by striving for excellence, humility and fairness, describing him as “a good man and a great man” whose influence extended far beyond the cricket field.
Delivering the principal tribute before members of his family, regional dignitaries, Government officials and hundreds of mourners, Mottley said the nation had gathered not only to bid farewell to its greatest sporting icon, but also to celebrate the values that defined his life.
“We come to Kensington Oval today not only to pay tribute,” she told mourners who included Sir Garfield’s family, President The Most Honourable Jeffrey Bostic, chairman of CARICOM and St Lucia Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre, regional leaders, diplomats, sporting icons and hundreds of Barbadians. “We have come to send a message to the future.”
Opening with words from The Merrymen that have become synonymous with the cricket legend, the Prime Minister captured the mood of the occasion.
“When a man good, he good. And when a man great, he great,” she said to loud applause.
She said that while Sir Garry’s astonishing cricket statistics had secured his place in sporting history, it was the life he lived beyond the boundary that elevated him to becoming a national treasure.
“The dash (the time he was alive) represented not just the statistics . . . but the dignity and the character of a man who, if he had not achieved any of those great feats on a cricket field, would still have been immortalised by this community as a good man and a great man.” (BA)
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