Sir Garry Sobers

When the ICC set out to name its annual award for the best men's cricketer of the year, it turned the choice over to a panel of Richie Benaud, Sunil Gavaskar and Michael Holding. They were asked to pick a figure fit to represent "cricket's ultimate individual award." They chose Garry Sobers, and the trophy has carried his name since 2004, a fitting tribute to a man most judges still rank as the game's greatest all-rounder. Sobers was born in Bridgetown, Barbados, in 1936 into a family dealt an early tragedy. His father died at sea in 1942 when a German U-boat sank the merchant navy ship he was serving on.

Cricket became his route forward. He made his first-class debut for Barbados at just 16, originally picked purely as a bowler, and within a year had earned a Test cap, making his debut against England at 17. His batting matured quickly once given the chance higher up the order, and in 1958 it produced a career-defining moment. His maiden Test century, against Pakistan at Sabina Park, turned into an unbeaten 365, a world-record individual score that stood for 36 years until Brian Lara passed it in 1994. Over the years that followed, Don Bradman came to describe him as a "five-in-one cricketer," for a game that combined powerful, elegant batting with genuine pace bowling, orthodox spin, wrist spin, and sharp fielding, all housed in the same player.

Sobers took over the West Indies captaincy in 1965, though it brought mixed fortunes, with four series defeats between 1967 and 1971 eventually costing him the job to Rohan Kanhai. His career carried personal tragedy too. In 1959, driving to a charity match in England, he was involved in a car accident that killed his West Indies teammate Collie Smith, a loss that stayed with him for the rest of his life. Alongside his international career, he built an equally storied reputation in county cricket. Signed by Nottinghamshire as an overseas professional in 1968, he became, that same year, the first batter in first-class history to hit six sixes in a single over, dismantling the Glamorgan bowler Malcolm Nash at Swansea. He also led Rest of the World sides against England and Australia after South Africa's exclusion from international cricket over apartheid.

Garry retired from international cricket in 1974, finishing with 8,032 Test runs at an average of 57.78, including 26 centuries, and 235 wickets taken across his three bowling styles. Recognition came steadily once he retired. Wisden had already named him a Cricketer of the Year in 1964, and knighthood followed in 1975, in a ceremony held on a beach in Barbados. The honours kept arriving long after his playing days. He was named one of Wisden's five Cricketers of the Century in 2000, inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in 2009, and made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2003 for his years with South Australia.

Barbados named him a National Hero in 1998, one of the island's highest honours and, for years, one he held as its only living recipient. When he died in July 2026, aged 89, the cricketing world responded as one. Tributes poured in from former teammates, old rivals and national boards alike, all echoing the same idea that no all-rounder before or since had come close to what Sobers achieved with bat, ball and in the field, all at once.