The Myths & The Truth

[Matt79]

Agreed. Good points there about wicketkeeper-batsmen. It's interesting that the great WI and Aussie sides did not have any great all-rounders.

You could argue that Gilchrist played the role of the allrounder in the Australian team. Does it matter whether the extra twenty runs come from a bowler or the keeper, compared to a typical player in that role?

The Windies, yeah for sure, although again, Marshall was a pretty decent lower order batsman, and Dujon for the time was a very good keeper-batsman.

But overall, it proves the point that if your four bowlers are good enough, the fifth bowler is pretty irrelevant, particularly if, in the case of Australia, one of them is a spinner with the endurance and control to bowl long long spells.

 

[honestbharani]

No,its because I want to know why people rate him so highly despite a mixture of crap & mediocre record as a bowler.

because cricket is not about stats and you will do well to read my sig, which is by an international cricketer (albeit age group) from our very own forums and a MUCH better judge of how and where stats can and do go wrong in cricket..........

 

[honestbharani]

Sobers = Sachin's batting + Zaheer's pace bowling + Vettori's spin bowling + Dravid's catching

Imran = [Initially (Hadlee's bowling + Hadlee's batting). Afterwards (Ravi Shastri's batting + Shaun Pollock's bowling)] + Ganguly's fielding + better than Ganguly's captaincy

Botham = Initially (Gower's batting + Imran's bowling + Dravid's catching). Afterwards (Hadlee's batting + Srinath's bowling + Ganguly's fielding)

lol.. love the Ravi Shastri reference.. He is obviiously the greatest allrounder ever.

 

[honestbharani]

Why has it become something of an accepted truth that bowling allrounder > batting allrounder? Not contesting it BTW, just curious. Sure if you're picking an all-time XI that's true, but otherwise I'm not convinced at all.

It is an extension of "bowler who can bat a bit" is a greater asset than a "batsman who can bowl a bit".. It comes down to this simple thing I guess.. Everyone has gotta have a bat most of the time in tests whereas you only really need 4 to 5 bowlers..

 

[weldone]

lol.. love the Ravi Shastri reference.. He is obviiously the greatest allrounder ever.

ha ha read some article on cricinfo a few days back...don't exactly remember the lines, but the gist was as follows, "Shastri had a batting SR in the thirties and a bowling ER of almost 2 runs per over. One can imagine if he could bowl to himself, cricket probably would have died." lol

 

[honestbharani]

This thread does bring up an interesting side question. Have there ever been any true all-rounders, players who could hold their place in the test side over their career with both their batting and bowling(in a strong test side)?

I honestly can't think of any. Keith Miller supposedly was but apparently threw his wicket away when batting if it was not important that he score runs. Raw statistics say his batting was not good enough but he seems to come closest.

The point is you can NEVER really state that with raw stats alone.. I mean, it is obvious that someone like Imran was very much talented with the bat but only really devoted himself to it at a time when his bowling was not so important... Same with Sobers. From all accounts, he was amazingly talented with the ball, but because his primary role in the team demanded his batting more than bowling, he never really concentrated on it. Same would apply for Kallis and just about any other all rounder. It is really amazingly difficult to concentrate on BOTH aspects like specialists which is what you need to do to get the best out of yourself in both disciplines. I would say it is almost impossible.

 

[honestbharani]

You could argue that Gilchrist played the role of the allrounder in the Australian team. Does it matter whether the extra twenty runs come from a bowler or the keeper, compared to a typical player in that role?

The Windies, yeah for sure, although again, Marshall was a pretty decent lower order batsman, and Dujon for the time was a very good keeper-batsman.

But overall, it proves the point that if your four bowlers are good enough, the fifth bowler is pretty irrelevant, particularly if, in the case of Australia, one of them is a spinner with the endurance and control to bowl long long spells.

Good point that.. Considering a typical wk/bat to avg. say 30 at 7 and an allrounder to avg the same, Gilly actually gives you higher but of course, he is not going to give you any wickets... Say an all rounder would contribute 2 wickets an innings and 35 runs on an average, I would think he is still greater than Gilly. But it is an interesting argument and another where I can see some right on both sides.

 

[weldone]

The point is you can NEVER really state that with raw stats alone.. I mean, it is obvious that someone like Imran was very much talented with the bat but only really devoted himself to it at a time when his bowling was not so important... Same with Sobers. From all accounts, he was amazingly talented with the ball, but because his primary role in the team demanded his batting more than bowling, he never really concentrated on it. Same would apply for Kallis and just about any other all rounder. It is really amazingly difficult to concentrate on BOTH aspects like specialists which is what you need to do to get the best out of yourself in both disciplines. I would say it is almost impossible.

AWTA

Kallis and Sobers would have been better bowlers if they didn't have to concentrate that much on their batting.

Miller, Imran and Kapil would have been better batsmen if they didn't have to concentrate that much on their bowling.

Can't comment on Botham really. Don't know if he would concentrate on even one of the two disciplines in the later part of his career. Would have depended on his mood, let's leave it at that.

 

[weldone]

Good point that.. Considering a typical wk/bat to avg. say 30 at 7 and an allrounder to avg the same, Gilly actually gives you higher but of course, he is not going to give you any wickets... Say an all rounder would contribute 2 wickets an innings and 35 runs on an average, I would think he is still greater than Gilly. But it is an interesting argument and another where I can see some right on both sides.

...then again, he can save you some dropped chances behind the stumps (not to mention some unnecessary bye fours)...not quite as good as wickets? what say?

 

[honestbharani]

...then again, he can save you some dropped chances behind the stumps (not to mention some unnecessary bye fours)...not quite as good as wickets? what say?

I dunno.. aren't we comparing him to a "usual" wicket keeper who won't drop any but would score say 25 runs lesser per innings.. That is what the great teams of the past had, right????

 

[Matt79]

Good point that.. Considering a typical wk/bat to avg. say 30 at 7 and an allrounder to avg the same, Gilly actually gives you higher but of course, he is not going to give you any wickets... Say an all rounder would contribute 2 wickets an innings and 35 runs on an average, I would think he is still greater than Gilly. But it is an interesting argument and another where I can see some right on both sides.

On the other hand, Gilly and Flower gave you those extra runs at no real cost in terms of the quality of keeper, whereas some of the other 'batting wicket-keepers' that have been tried and failed easily cost their team a couple of wickets a match - Kamren Akmal anyone? They were allrounders in the sense that they let you have both a top six standard batsman and a competent keeper.

I normally don't count wicket-keepers in discussions of all-rounders because I do think they are a bit different, but I think in the context of the observation that Waugh and Ponting's team didn't have an allrounder, the fact they were able to field seven front line batsmen without compromising their bowling OR their wicket-keeping is something that's worth pointing out.

 

[weldone]

I dunno.. aren't we comparing him to a "usual" wicket keeper who won't drop any but would score say 25 runs lesser per innings.. That is what the great teams of the past had, right????

I would like to call Gilly an alrounder. If you're calling Gilly a batting alrounder, then yes. If you're calling Gilly an wicketkeeping (not bowling, lol) alrounder then you might compare him with someone like Kamran Akmal, for example. Having Gilly in the team means getting more dismissals than having Akmal in the team (every other thing remaining constant). That's exactly the difference between a batsman and a batting alrounder.

 

[Ikki]

In Miller's case it wasn't really a case of him having to concentrate on one discipline over another to get better at it. His was more a physical impediment which in all likelihood came from his war injuries as a fighter pilot. For the first half of his career he averaged 46 with the bat and 21 with the ball. In the second half he averaged 32 with the bat and 24 with the ball. Overall: 37 with the bat and 23 with the ball. I'm not sure how much you can put on it, but the war affected in another way in that Miller looked at cricket less as a "must-win-at-all-costs" activity and his leisurely take on the game probably affected his figures being even better than they are - which already, as they are, qualify him as all-time great.

Botham, I think, is the same in terms of being ably talented and skilled at both disciplines. But his downfall was self-inflicted as he didn't seem to find self-preservation (in terms of staying fit, on form) a worthy discipline during the latter stages of his career.

 

[Avada Kedavra]

Yeah, Chaminda Vaas is definitely a better bowler, but Khan, if Minnows are removed from his statistics, averages 35 as a bowler overall. Fair comparison IMO.

Sobers had his fair share of minnows...

Btw, I have heard that Sobers used to bowl spin on seam friendly pitches and vice-versa.Why does he get credit for something so daft?

 

[honestbharani]

Sobers had his fair share of minnows...

Btw, I have heard that Sobers used to bowl spin on seam friendly pitches and vice-versa.Why does he get credit for something so daft?

for balancing the attack?

 

[Matt79]

In Miller's case it wasn't really a case of him having to concentrate on one discipline over another to get better at it. His was more a physical impediment which in all likelihood came from his war injuries as a fighter pilot. For the first half of his career he averaged 46 with the bat and 21 with the ball. In the second half he averaged 32 with the bat and 24 with the ball. Overall: 37 with the bat and 23 with the ball. I'm not sure how much you can put on it, but the war affected in another way in that Miller looked at cricket less as a "must-win-at-all-costs" activity and his leisurely take on the game probably affected his figures being even better than they are - which already, as they are, qualify him as all-time great.

Botham, I think, is the same in terms of being ably talented and skilled at both disciplines. But his downfall was self-inflicted as he didn't seem to find self-preservation (in terms of staying fit, on form) a worthy discipline during the latter stages of his career.

According to Roland Perry he injured his back while wrestling with a mate during the war, and afterwards suffered pain from it that was quite fatiguing and distracting whenever his bowling workload got too heavy. Of course that's Perry talking, so he may well have just made that up.

 

[weldone]

In Miller's case it wasn't really a case of him having to concentrate on one discipline over another to get better at it. His was more a physical impediment which in all likelihood came from his war injuries as a fighter pilot.

I know...I used the word 'concentrate' casually...I knew that was not the correct word as soon as I typed it, but went with the flow of writing to make things seem simple.

 

[Matt79]

Sobers had his fair share of minnows...

Btw, I have heard that Sobers used to bowl spin on seam friendly pitches and vice-versa.Why does he get credit for something so daft?

Yeah, that gets trotted out a bit, and I can't recall seeing a reliable source for it, or a detailed analysis of when it took place, but the gist of it was that if the team had a selection choice to make between a specialist spinner and an extra quick, if the conditions looked favourable for quick bowling, they'd take the extra specialist quick and Sobers would play the role of the spinner as required, and if the conditions looked like it would take spin, they'd play the extra specialist spinner and Sobers would take the place of the missing quick. So if anything he gets credited for sacrificing his own potential output by being flexible to help the team get the best balanced attack in each situation. As I said, I haven't seen an analysis of how much that actually happened, but I've no doubt it did occur in some instances.

 

[Avada Kedavra]

for balancing the attack?

Wouldn't it have been more beneficial if he bowled seam on seam friendly pitches and spin on the spinner friendly ones?Surely that would have given him a better chance of picking up a wicket?

P.S I am not doubting Sober's greatness.He is prob. the best all-rounder along with Imran Khan.Just think bowling seam on pitches that helped spin and vice-versa wasn't exactly wise.

 

[Avada Kedavra]

Yeah, that gets trotted out a bit, and I can't recall seeing a reliable source for it, or a detailed analysis of when it took place, but the gist of it was that if the team had a selection choice to make between a specialist spinner and an extra quick, if the conditions looked favourable for quick bowling, they'd take the extra specialist quick and Sobers would play the role of the spinner as required, and if the conditions looked like it would take spin, they'd play the extra specialist spinner and Sobers would take the place of the missing quick.

I see...that makes more sense.