This old black-and-white photo depicts a training session of the Sri Lanka cricket team in 1982. Sir Garfield Sobers, the ultimate legend from Barbados who celebrated his 85th birthday on 28 July, is the Coach.

Background:

The late Gamini Dissanayake brought down Sir Gary, world’s greatest all-rounder, to coach the budding Test cricket team with the cost of that bright initiative being borne by Rajendran Rajamahendra, Chairman of the Maharaja Group, who passed away last month.

Analysis:

On a bright sunny day, Sir Sobers is apparently displaying a left-side shot as Captain Duleep Mendis, teenager Arjuna Ranatunga in shorts, and around a dozen members of the then Sri Lanka squad are eagerly watching and listening to the great. The photo is a classic portrayal of how much respect and concern Sir Sobers commanded from a national team, which looks like a school team before their school coach.

Revelations:

Sobers, the first overseas coach of Sri Lanka’s cricket team, derived immense respect, understandably, and in return he instilled self belief, the key feature the highly skilled team lacked during that time.

Photographer:

Unknown.

Afterword:

Due to Dissanayake’s and Rajamahendran’s timely and wise move Sri Lanka improved in leaps and bounds just in a couple of series under Sobers’ watch. Ranatunga went on record saying that he would have faced the axe of the selectors in those early days of his career if not for the intervention by Sobers, who had handpicked the youngster whilst the selectors had dropped him. Sobers in that way is one of the main figures behind the islanders’ success story in world cricket.