PM mourns passing of cricket legend Sir Garfield Sobers

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ex­pressed con­do­lences fol­low­ing the pass­ing of crick­et leg­end Sir Garfield St Aubrun Sobers, de­scrib­ing him as one of the Caribbean’s most dis­tin­guished sons and a glob­al sport­ing icon.

In a state­ment is­sued on Fri­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Trinidad and To­ba­go joined Bar­ba­dos, the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty and the in­ter­na­tion­al sport­ing fra­ter­ni­ty in mourn­ing Sobers’ death.

She ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly, the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Bar­ba­dos, the West In­dies crick­et­ing fra­ter­ni­ty and ad­mir­ers world­wide.

The Prime Min­is­ter said Sobers’ achieve­ments ex­tend­ed be­yond crick­et and be­came part of the his­to­ry and iden­ti­ty of the Caribbean.

“Sir Gar­ry was one of those rare in­di­vid­u­als. He did not sim­ply re­de­fine crick­et; he helped shape how the Caribbean came to see it­self and how the world came to see the Caribbean,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Sobers’ ca­reer co­in­cid­ed with a pe­ri­od when Caribbean na­tions were mov­ing to­wards in­de­pen­dence and es­tab­lish­ing their place glob­al­ly.

She said through his per­for­mances, dis­ci­pline and char­ac­ter, Sobers demon­strat­ed that ex­cel­lence was not de­ter­mined by ge­og­ra­phy, pop­u­la­tion or wealth.

“Long be­fore the Caribbean ex­er­cised sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic or diplo­mat­ic in­flu­ence in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, Sir Gar­ry en­sured that the name West In­dies com­mand­ed ad­mi­ra­tion wher­ev­er crick­et was played,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

She de­scribed Sobers as one of the re­gion’s first tru­ly glob­al am­bas­sadors, say­ing he car­ried the hopes of the Caribbean on­to the world stage and in­spired con­fi­dence across the re­gion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar high­light­ed Sobers’ achieve­ments as an all-round crick­eter, say­ing his ver­sa­til­i­ty es­tab­lished a stan­dard that gen­er­a­tions have sought to em­u­late.

How­ev­er, she said his lega­cy could not be mea­sured by records alone.

“True great­ness does not di­min­ish with time; it be­comes the bench­mark by which oth­ers are mea­sured,” she said.

The Prime Min­is­ter said Sobers’ lega­cy be­longs not on­ly to Bar­ba­dos and crick­et, but to the wider Caribbean, adding that his life rep­re­sent­ed the re­gion’s jour­ney from colo­nial­ism to con­fi­dence and achieve­ment.

She said Sobers’ ex­am­ple would con­tin­ue to in­spire fu­ture gen­er­a­tions through his dis­ci­pline, in­tegri­ty and per­se­ver­ance.