Bonaventure and the Flashing Blade: When Gar(r)y Sobers lent his name to science fiction

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In 1967, at the height of his cricketing prowess and fame, Garry Sobers lent his name to a cricket-based science fiction novel Bonaventure and the Flashing BladeArunabha Sengupta talks about this little known work of fiction supposedly penned by the great man.

Talk about all-round skills, and Garry Sobers is still the first name to pop up in cricketing conversations.The man himself is touching 80, becoming frail by the hour, but the deeds of his willow and leather, and his panther-like movements at leg-slip, are all part of cricketing folklore.

He was a freak of nature, the best of batsmen, most versatile of bowlers and the supreme acrobat among fieldsmen: 8,032 runs, 235 wickets in multiple styles, 109 catches … well, what more can one say?

Well, there are other feats too. He could drink all night and rattle a Test hundred the next morning. He could calculate the final amount of a bill after a gay evening even while the bartender was writing down the figures. He could have been an ace golfer if he had not opted to hit the moving ball instead. He was a genius.

But, does one remember a science-fiction novel supposedly written by this very same man? A racy, slim volume for young adults titled Bonaventure and the Flashing Blade, with ‘Gary Sobers’ as the name of the author?

This curious volume was published in 1967, when Sobers was at the very height of his prowess and fame. He was the captain of West Indies, having just returned from India after a convincing series victory. In the three Tests, he had scored 342 runs at 114 and taken 14 wickets at 25. The previous summer, he had been the man who had people flocking to the cricket grounds in England even as the country hosted the soccer World Cup and triumphed in the tournament. Sobers had romped through the five Tests, scoring 772 runs at 103.14 with 3 hundreds, capturing 20 wickets at 27.25 and pouching 10 catches. He was unbelievable.

In hindsight, it was just about the last triumph of Sobers the captain. West Indies would not win another Test series in six-and-a-half years. But in early 1967, West Indies were the champions, and Sobers stood at the very top of the world. He had played 60 Tests, scored 5,514 runs at 61.95 with 17 hundreds, captured 144 wickets at 33.44 and had snapped up 78 catches.

He could do virtually anything.

However, could he write as well?

Bonaventure and the Flashing Blade

It is quite obvious that Sobers did not pen the book himself. He was not one given to much writing, even answering correspondence was not his cup of tea. 

When Will Buckley of the Guardian took along a copy of the book while interviewing him in 2001, Sobers supposedly recoiled on seeing the dust jacket and admitted, “I’ve never seen one of them.” After closer inspection, he said, “I think I may have read it.”

Nevertheless, it was published under his name. What is more, it has Sobers himself popping in and out of the story.

Indeed, the novel starts with Sobers talking through the first chapter in first person. Then he scoots away to Australia, and the novel progresses in the third person mode. Towards the end of the novel, he comes back and starts his first person narration again.

The plot is interesting, although rather thin. It centres around Clyde Bonaventure, a brilliant young scholar from Barbados who lives in England. Sobers himself happens to be a good friend of his family.

Young Bonaventure has a talent for cricket, but has never taken it seriously. His academic brilliance lands him in an elite computer science institute. And as his project he chooses to program the extremely expensive computer of the institute to select a cricket team and train them by feeding in ideal cricketing instructions.

He is helped by other brilliant friends at the institute, two of whom combine to invent a device that allows long distance communication through a nearly invisible earpiece (remember this is the 1960s). Another friend invents a novel set of clothing for the cricketers, including special pads.

With these in place, and helped by former West Indian cricketer Frank Wayne, the Bonaventurer team become unbeatable, even against sides full of great Test-class cricketers. They can win any game, aided by curious field positions and plans for batting and bowling formulated by the computer.

In the end, they play against an All-Star team led by Sobers himself. Bonaventure becomes a cricketing superstar, his natural talents honed by the computer aided coaching methods to produce a superb cricketer.

Considering that the novel was written in 1967, and about a game as rigidly conservative about using data and figures for training as cricket, this was remarkable foresight indeed. “We do not deal in luck, we deal in figures and facts,” says Bonaventure. Not really the way the cricket world used to think in the 1960s. Not really the way many think now either, even after proven merits of data analysis. 

The results achieved by the Bonaventurers, however, are a bit too fantastic. The computer-coached cricketers are capable of taking wickets at will and scoring 450 runs in a couple of hours. The computer manages to coach even a Canadian and a Swedish student, with absolutely no idea about cricket, into world beating players within a few months.

But, perhaps the biggest bit of fairy-tale in the novel is that ex-cricketers and sports writers readily subscribe to thisnovel ways of coaching in the computer method. In reality, that will perhaps remain the final frontier of cricket.

The novel also predicts communication between the captain/coach and on-field players through concealed devices. This is indeed a major prediction.

There is nothing remarkable about the style of writing. The target readership was obviously the young adults, and therefore the language is simple and breezy. There are a few understandable misconceptions about the line between hardware and software, and the power of computers. In a particular session with the computer, the machine shows indications of being similar to the Hogwarts Sorting Hat.

But, there are some quaint features of interest for the cricket lover.

The book opens with Sobers mentioning that he is just back from India. Indeed, as mentioned earlier, in 1967, the great all-rounder had just played a fabulous series in that country.

When the rest of the world is mentioned, India and Pakistan strangely take precedence, alongside Europe, Malaya and Japan … a clear indication of cricket on the mind.

There is one touching moment when Sobers ponders on the problems that computer scientists struggle with, saying, “I’m off to Australia where I’ll just about struggle to count eight balls to the over instead of six. Hey ho for the simple life.”

Then there is Frank Wayne, the cricket coach, a frightening fast bowler who bowled at 90 miles per hour during his Test playing days, and gave the ball a vigorous clout as a tail-ender. There seems to be a touch of Wes Hall in this endearing character. The legendary fast bowler was just about winding up his Test career at that time. “Keep that left elbow up, turn your left-shoulder more towards me and tuck in your chin so you sight along the shoulder line,” he coaches. Sound advice.

There is a nice touch in detailing the conflict between the institute’s accepted cricket team and the Bonaventurers. Led by the son of one of the bigwigs of the institute, with an old Colonel acting as one of the selectors, the traditional team is opposed to the upstarts with their new-fangled ideas. As Wayne points out, this has traces of the old Gentlemen-Players divide.

There is a sharp word against the traditionalists too. Wayne proclaims, “I like anything that will put life into our cricket. Some other people like things to be as they’ve been for the past fifty years.”

When Sobers returns towards the end of the novel, he watches Bonaventure bat from his close leg-field position. That sounds authentic enough.

Finally, the computer kids open new avenues for cricket. In the beginning, Sobers had lamented, “Sure, I travel around playing cricket. But not all over the world. Not America, or Russia or China. They are the world too, but not for a cricketer.” In the end, with Bonaventure’s fascinating innovations, the Russians become interested in both the computer program and cricket the sport.

Another sidelight peeps out as rather strange. Considering this is a 1967 novel, written at the height of the Cold War, surprisingly some Russians come across as good guys, while the Americans do the villainous spying and get decked in the chin for their efforts.

It is perhaps not Asimov, but it is readable enough if one is interested in cricket.

One major flaw which virtually ends all doubts about the book’s authorship is the title page where ‘Gary Sobers’ is credited as the author. Throughout the book he is referred to as ‘Gary’.

As David Frith points out in the Australian Periodical Between Wickets, “The error was even committed in the title of an early book based on his career. The solemn and powerful English broadcaster EW Swanton insisted on spelling it with one ‘r’ even after proof had been established: ‘Garry’. And that truth had been established by me after I took the trouble to write to the champion all-rounder. Now Garry Sobers isn’t really into answering correspondence. But his then-wife did, on his behalf. She kindly pointed out that it was as he’d always written it: Garry. It was even on the bats he endorsed.”

In that case, fancy Sobers writing a book and letting it be published as ‘By Gary Sobers.’

Bonaventure and the Flashing Blade

Written by ‘Gary’ Sobers

Pelham Books

160 pages