Top 4 All Rounders Ever

[Debris]

Alan Davidson

 

[Pothas]

For what they're worth, the ICC player rankings for all-rounders seem to be
(there isn't an all-time ranking, this is from me typing in many of the usual suspects):

Sobers 669
Botham 646
Kallis 616
Miller 573
Imran 518
Flintoff 501
Faulkner 501
S Pollock 490 -> we all missed him
Hadlee 483
Noble 451
Kapil 433
Vinoo Mankad 417
Vettori 412
Mushtaq M 386

(Others are much below this eg Grace)

Seems reasonable.

Yeah crap that W.G fellow....

 

[Anil]

sobers
imran
miller
botham
davidson
kallis

 

[Days of Grace]

For what they're worth, the ICC player rankings for all-rounders seem to be
(there isn't an all-time ranking, this is from me typing in many of the usual suspects):

Sobers 669
Botham 646
Kallis 616
Miller 573
Imran 518
Flintoff 501
Faulkner 501
S Pollock 490 -> we all missed him
Hadlee 483
Noble 451
Kapil 433
Vinoo Mankad 417
Vettori 412
Mushtaq M 386

(Others are much below this eg Grace)

Seems reasonable.

That's peak ratings, though mate, which explains why Botham is no.2 and Imran is so low. Basically Imran was never quite a world-class batsmen and world-class bowler at the same time but when you put his career numbers together he is second only to Sobers in my opinion.

 

[jeevan]

That's peak ratings, though mate, which explains why Botham is no.2 and Imran is so low. Basically Imran was never quite a world-class batsmen and world-class bowler at the same time but when you put his career numbers together he is second only to Sobers in my opinion.

Possibly quite right, discussion to same effect on previous page. Though I'm not sure how to bucket Kallis. He's been excellent with bat and concurrently good with ball for a long time.

 

[The_roc]

Whatever sport you follow it's always difficult to compare players from the current era with those that played 50 years ago. How woukd Wayne Rooney do if he had to wear Stanley Mathews boots and play with a waterlogged leather ball?

For me Sobers and Kallis would be the top 2, with Botham in at 3.

Never a big fan of Imran Khan, always preferred Kapil Dev or Richard Hadlee. Also suprised Wasim Akram never made the top 10.

 

[lockton2skipper]

if you go by stats kallis is by far the best allrounder ever. quality top order batsman and one hell of a fast bowler in his day.

 

[Slifer]

if you go by stats kallis is by far the best allrounder ever. quality top order batsman and one hell of a fast bowler in his day.

How??

 

[lockton2skipper]

runs scored at high average and close on 400 test wickets thats how.

 

[Debris]

runs scored at high average and close on 400 test wickets thats how.

261 is close to 400? And he is averaging less than 2 wickets a test, hardly a terrific front-line bowler.

 

[Black_Warrior]

Imran
Sobers
Botham
Hadlee

 

[Shri]

Sobers
Kallis
Imran
Miller

 

[jeevan]

261 is close to 400? And he is averaging less than 2 wickets a test, hardly a terrific front-line bowler.

The guy made a simple lookup mistake, Kallis has 396 FC wickets.

If you've been following - Kallis has said he doesn't want to bowl much, and seems to bowl less when things are going OK. You could call him a somewhat reluctant all-rounder of late (Imran did this too btw, later on) which mostly explains his low wickets/test.

Therefore one should also look at his SR and average.His average (~31) and SR (mid-60s) are not flash by McGrath standards and more comparable to Vaas (who definitely was a front line bowler contemporary to Kallis, and a well regarded one).

Since Kallis is a batting all rounder (in top 5 of his time in his primary area), that's all he should have to do in his secondary area (be among the top 12-15 of his time.). If he was in the top 5 of both, he'd probably be a mythical creature like Bradman, as no other all-rounder of recent times has done that. (Don't know about the early days of men's cricket. In women's cricket there are a 2-3 today in this category).

 

[slowfinger]

Swanneh z
End of

 

[Debris]

The guy made a simple lookup mistake, Kallis has 396 FC wickets.

If you've been following - Kallis has said he doesn't want to bowl much, and seems to bowl less when things are going OK. You could call him a somewhat reluctant all-rounder of late (Imran did this too btw, later on) which mostly explains his low wickets/test.

Therefore one should also look at his SR and average.His average (~31) and SR (mid-60s) are not flash by McGrath standards and more comparable to Vaas (who definitely was a front line bowler contemporary to Kallis, and a well regarded one).

Since Kallis is a batting all rounder (in top 5 of his time in his primary area), that's all he should have to do in his secondary area (be among the top 12-15 of his time.). If he was in the top 5 of both, he'd probably be a mythical creature like Bradman, as no other all-rounder of recent times has done that. (Don't know about the early days of men's cricket. In women's cricket there are a 2-3 today in this category).

Except that simple look up mistake was being used to promote Kallis as by far the best all-rounder ever.

No doubt that Kallis is one of the great modern batsman but, as you point out above, his bowling is really part-time by his own choice. The less you bowl the better your strike-rate in comparison to talent is going to be as you don't have to do much of the donkey work. Kallis also bowls in SA which is extremely friendly to seam bowling where Vaas bowled in SL which is not. I imagine that has some effect on strike-rates and averages.

 

[lockton2skipper]

yes i made a mistake. take it all back. by those stats you can't even consider him. more of a batsman who is a very usefull bowler.

 

[thierry henry]

Kallis is the only bowler in the entire history of test cricket to take 200+ test wickets and be regarded as a "handy part-timer".

 

[slowfinger]

Ya man very true very under-rated, in fact he is more of a complete package than Tendulkar and a sort of Darren Gough-ey type of guy, what a legend.

 

[lockton2skipper]

i actually thought chris cairns was more of a true allrounder than richard hadlee. very under rated player.

 

[jeevan]

Ya man very true very under-rated, in fact he is more of a complete package than Tendulkar and a sort of Darren Gough-ey type of guy, what a legend.

Probably a more complete all rounder package than Imran, to be relevant to this thread.

.