Garfield Sobers was the greatest all-rounder of all time. Over 93 Tests, I scored 8,032 runs, captured 235 wickets and snared 109 catches, some absolute gems in the slips. But during India’s 1971 tour of the Caribbean, the West Indies master dropped Sunil Gavaskar no less than three times, providing an inadvertent fillip to the career of the young opener playing his first Test series. Gavaskar, who described Sobers as “the greatest cricketer I have ever seen” in his book “Idols”, detailed those missed chances in his autobiography “Sunny Days”.“I was pleased to see Sobers grass a quick low kick off Holder as I tried to get him off the back foot. Sobers tumbled in the attempt but spilled the ball. This was a stroke of luck,” he wrote. The opportunity was offered when Sunny was in his 20s and he went on to score 65 on debut. It was the same Test where India recorded their first win against the West Indies in Trinidad. Sobers also had a hand, literally, in Gavaskar getting his first ton. The opener wrote: “As I neared my first century, dark clouds began to gather and it began to rain. The game continued, however, and in 94 I survived what was probably the simplest of catches.”It looked like Sunny played forward to an aerial delivery from off-spinner Jack Noreiga. “The ball spun and bounced, hit me on my glove and went to Sobers, who would have taken a dolly if he had been placed where he was before the ball. But Garry, anticipating my defensive stroke forward, had stepped forward,” Gavaskar wrote. Sobers missed the catch. “At the end of the over, Gary stood in front of me and said, ‘Maan, why are you after me, can’t you find another fielder?’ I had gone down three times so far and this last one was the easiest of the lot.Sunny went on to score 116.But the West Indian great took it all in stride. Gavaskar scored 124 and 220 in the last Test, taking his run score to 774 in the series. “When I was walking back to the pavilion, Sobers smiled and shook my head,” Sunny wrote. Both cricketers were in the same side, Rest of the World, against Australia in 1971-72. Sobers’ 254 v. Lillee and Co. in Melbourne he was described by Donald Bradman as “the greatest since the War”. But “the remarkable thing is that he never wore a thigh guard in his life,” Sunny wrote.