by Arunabha Sengupta

Garfield Sobers, born 28 July 1936, was simply the greatest all-round cricketer ever witnessed in the history of game. He was a freak of nature, who was the best of batsmen, most versatile of bowlers and the supreme acrobat among fieldsmen.
He was a genius. There is no other word for it.
And the genius blossomed early.

We have already written in detail about his life and career…

However, here are five rather unusual facts about Sobers the boy prodigy before he became a Test cricketer.

1. Garry Sobers was born with six fingers in each hand. The first extra finger fell off before he was 10, jerked out with a piece of cat gut wrapped around the base and hauled off with a sharp tug. He played his first serious cricket match with 11 digits. The remaining additional finger was severed with the help of a sharp knife when Sobers was 14

2. Denis Atkinson recommended young Sobers to Captain Wilfred Farmer, the commissioner of Police. There were talks to get him into the Police Cricket Club. Sobers was barely into his teens at that time and to make the inclusion legitimate, he was asked to play the bugle for the police band.

3. When he went for trials at Barbados, Sobers stood in the covers in his shorts and picked up the ferocious drives of Clyde Walcott with supreme ease

4. Sobers was just 16 and still playing in his shorts when he was chosen as a last-minute replacement against the touring Indians of 1952-53 — his First-Class debut. The Sobers family could not afford flannels for the young man, so Barbados cricket Association presented Sobers with his first cricket outfit.

5. Sobers was engaged in a match of street cricket with his friends when a cable from the West Indies Board arrived requesting him to join the team for the Fourth Test against England at Trinidad.