According to legendary West Indian all-rounder Sir Gary Sobers ,hard work is the key to success . There are only two kinds of sportsmen and women in the opinion of Sir Garfield Sobers. Those born with a natural ability to achieve something special and those who have to put in a lot more effort to achieve the same result because they lacked the natural ability.
But, in either case, says Sobers, hard work is the only route to success. “People call me a genius. I don’t know much about geniuses. But I do believe that what I achieved was not just because of the ability that I was born with but also because I worked hard,” said the Barbadian, addressing a select gathering of ex-cricketers and connoisseurs in Mumbai on Sunday (November 22).
Ability alone, he says, is never sufficient because one’s got to work hard to make it work. “And I think that is where I think I capitalized. I worked hard,” said the legendary all-rounder who has 8032 runs and 235 wickets from 93 Tests.
Reminiscing, Sobers said that the West Indies of the 50s and the 60s travelled to the United Kingdom with the sole aim of earning the respect of their opposition. “If you were an Indian or West Indian in England, they always felt their cricketers were better although they knew you were as good as them. It’s just that you had to endure a lot more to prove yourself,” Sobers said about the challenges faced before the ‘trueconnoisseurs’ of cricket acknowledgedhis ability.
Recounting his days as a young cricketer who was in awe of his elder brother Jerry, Sobers added: “When I tell people that I was not as good a batsman as my brother Jerry, people don’t believe it. He was better than Seymour Nurse and those who’ve seen Seymour will know what I’m saying,” he said, speaking to a crowd that had ex-cricketers Madhav Apte, Ajit Wadekar, Dilip Doshi, Farokh Engineer, Dilip Vengsarkar and others in the audience.