Last night, when the news came that Sir Garfield Sobers had completed his journey, I reached for those who shared the geography of that loss. I messaged Arlene, married to a Barbadian, and in the flood of memories that followed, my seven-year-old self reappeared, sitting in the sun-drenched tiers of Queen’s Park Oval, hand in my father’s, watching Sobers walk.I was seven in 1971, visiting Trinidad from Dominica, where my father was on a UNDP posting. The world was bright and uncomplicated then: a child from India holding her father’s hand proudly as he presented credentials in a Caribbean capital still negotiating its postcolonial self. The match was India, led by Ajit Wadekar, against the West Indies, led by Sobers. The air was electric, the stadium a cauldron of sound. And in that cauldron, a young Sunil Gavaskar was making his legend—three centuries on that 1971 tour, his debut innings at the Oval a quiet revolution.A few years later, the calypsos would come—some in praise of Sobers, some in mockery after the 1971 defeat. But in that moment, what stayed with me was the image of Sobers: not the fallen captain, but the generous champion who walked over and patted the young Gavaskar, a gesture that seemed to say the game was bigger than any single player. That is the Sobers who endured in my memory.The cricket field as theatre of empire and its undoingC.L.R. James, in Beyond a Boundary (1963), offered me an intellectual framework for understanding why cricket mattered so profoundly in the Caribbean. The game, he argued, was not merely a colonial import to be accepted or rejected; it was a terrain on which Caribbean people could contest, appropriate, and ultimately transform the very symbols of empire. The bat and ball became instruments of social identity, dignity, and anti-colonial assertion.In James’s reading, the West Indian cricketer was not simply an athlete but a political subject, performing freedom on a field once reserved for the master’s games. When Sobers strode to the crease, he was not merely playing cricket; he was enacting a Caribbean claim to excellence, agency, and self-definition. Yet here lay the complication that I have come to recognise: Sobers, the symbol of Caribbean liberation, was also a figure celebrated by the very establishment he was meant to transcend. Knighted in 1975, honoured as a National Hero in Barbados, embraced by governments across the region, Sobers became both the anti-colonial insurgent and the respectable gentleman of the colonial order.Intellectuals like Michael Manley would describe him as a “man of genius” who shone “like some great star alone,” embodying a regional excellence that transcended island parochialism. But that lone star, shining so brightly, also obscured the collective struggle that produced him. The Sobers symbol, in all its radiance, risked turning anti-colonial politics into a cult of personality—where the Caribbean could point to one man’s genius rather than confront the structural inequalities that persisted long after the flags came down.It is with profound sadness that I join Barbados, the Caribbean and the cricketing world in mourning the passing of The Right Excellent Sir Garfield Sobers, our Sir Garry.From Bay Land to Kensington and onto the world stage, he carried Barbados and the West Indies with… pic.twitter.com/Sj6lFG7gfh— Mia Amor Mottley (@miaamormottley) July 17, 2026When the singer-poets narrated the all-rounderGordon Rohlehr, as literary and cultural critic, supplied the flesh to James’s framework by showing how calypso—born of Afro-Caribbean experience, carnival, and the singer-poet tradition—became the voice that narrated, critiqued, and celebrated the cricket story. Calypso was far more than entertainment; it was the heartbeat of Caribbean historical consciousness, a democratic medium where satire, praise, and social commentary merged.Calypso originated in Trinidad and became heavily integrated into Carnival, with annual competitions that elevated calypsonians like the Mighty Sparrow to the status of public intellectuals. Cricket, the most sought-after pastime across parks, beaches, and lanes, became a central theme for asserting West Indian identity.The “Victory Calypso” by Beginner immortalised the West Indies’ historic maiden win at Lord’s in 1950: “Cricket lovely cricket, at Lord’s where I saw it… With those two little pals of mine, Ramadhin and Valentine.” That song announced a new geopolitical consciousness: the colonies could beat the metropole at its own game, and the calypso would tell the story.Then came Sobers. In the mid-1960s, the Mighty Sparrow penned “Sir Garfield Sobers,” celebrating the great all-rounder with lines that became part of regional lore:“Who’s the greatest cricketer on Earth or Mars?Anyone can tell you, it’s the great Sir Garfield SobersThis handsome Barbadian lad really knows his workBatting or bowling he’s the cricket king, no jokeThree cheers for Captain Sobers!”Yet calypso, in its democratic wisdom, never allowed hero-worship to go unchallenged. The same genre that lifted Sobers to the skies would, just a few years later, turn its satirical gaze upon him when India won in 1971. The calypsonian’s licence was to praise and to puncture, to celebrate and to critique—an ambivalence that mirrored my own relationship with the Caribbean’s heroes. Sobers, the symbol of regional pride, was also a target for the very democratic voices he was meant to represent.Defeat, satire and the grace of the kingThe 1971 series in Trinidad complicated the narrative I had constructed. India won, and calypso, true to its democratic, satirical nature, turned its gaze on the fallen hero. Lord Relator’s “Gavaskar” calypso celebrated Sunil Gavaskar’s stellar debut series by mocking the West Indies team and captain Gary Sobers. The song highlighted Sobers’s poor leadership, suggested he needed coaching, and described the bowlers as ineffective, inferior to the Indian batsman.Yet even in defeat, Sobers’s grace shone. He walked over to Gavaskar, offering a pat, a smile, an acknowledgement that greatness recognises greatness. That moment, more than any victory, captured the essence of Sobers: casual yet graceful agility, a deceptive “laziness” that concealed explosive power, a physical presence that moved with musical rhythm.“Our hero from Barbados”: The island claim on a regional iconAfter the 1971 defeat, and especially after Sobers was knighted in 1975, the calypsos returned to praise. The Merrymen of Barbados recorded “Gary Sobers,” a Bajan tribute that claimed him not just as a West Indian icon but as a national hero:“When he bat, when he bowl, when he fieldHe’s the greatest man in the worldGary Sobers, Gary SobersOur hero from BarbadosFrom the time he step on the cricket groundPeople start to shout and make a sound‘Sobers! Sobers!’ you can hear them callThe greatest cricketer of them all”This song encapsulates the dual identity Sobers embodied: a Caribbean symbol, yet also a source of fierce national pride for Barbados, where he is one of ten official National Heroes.Boats, wives and the archipelago’s shared consciousnessThe West Indies of that era was a curious world I observed as a child. People married, celebrated, and mourned together, linking islands in unusual ways. Our carpenter Joseph in Dominica had wives on four islands and would disappear occasionally on his boat to visit them. Dominica was still under British rule; boats came and went carrying goods. Trinidad, though free from colonial rule, carried an unusual colonial tension: erstwhile Indian indentured labourers swearing by the Gita, recalling the Ramayana, alongside African descendants carrying so many nuances from which calypso emerged.Calypso became a tool to assert West Indian brotherhood, a medium for satire and democratic voices. Cricket, played on every patch of open ground, became a theme to assert West Indian identity. Together, they forged a geopolitical consciousness that was both local and regional, rooted in the islands yet reaching beyond them.A six, a steel band and a final saluteLast night, hearing the news of his passing, my mind returned to that 1971 afternoon at the Oval, the steel band filling the stadium, the mirage of Sobers casually walking in, and the calypso rising to meet him. Sir Vivian Richards once said that seeing him walk to the wicket was enough to inspire, while the media crowned him “King of Cricket.”Sobers was more than a cricketer. He was a symbol of Caribbean excellence, a man whose genius illuminated the region’s claim to selfhood. In James’s framework, he was the anti-colonial subject par excellence; in Rohlehr’s reading, he was the calypso hero, sung into legend by the singer-poets of the Caribbean. Yet he was also, perhaps, a reminder that symbols can both liberate and constrain—that the lone star, shining brightly, can obscure the collective sky.Goodbye, Sir Gary Sobers. A six, and a salute.Navina Jafa is vice-president of Centre for New Perspectives, a think tank that works on intangible heritage, traditional knowledge through research and pilot programmes for sustainable development.This article was originally published on the author’s Substack.