A biography of Garry Sobers, who turns 90 in 2026 and personifies the greatest of West Indian cricket

At the end of the 1960s, Garry Sobers became the highest profile beneficiary of English cricket's decision to rid itself of the qualification rule about hiring overseas glamour. He picked Nottinghamshire, a side mediocre for so long that it was stranded on the margins of the Championship. In that first memorable summer Sobers so successfully sparked the revival of a moribund club that it acquired the sobriquet 'Sobers-shire'.

Duncan Hamilton fell in love with cricket because he first fell in love with Sobers. He counts himself as 'blessed' to have lived only a shilling bus ride from Trent Bridge during the years Sobers played there. The Man Who Walked Out of the Sun is both Hamilton's remembrance of those times and a study of Sobers' career, tracking the rise and dominance of the world's first 'jet age' cricketer.

The barest of Sobers' statistics prove that every superlative ever used about his brilliance is justified, but Hamilton considers them less important than the sense of wonder he inspired, the emotion he stirred, the elan with which he played, the abundant beauty in almost everything he did.