Cricket's great all-rounders

[Red]

Complete All Rounders (who would be selected as either a batsman or bowler in their side)

Keith Miller
Imran Khan
Ian Botham
Kapil Dev

Bowling All Rounders (may or may not be selected in their side as only a batsman)

Richard Hadlee
Shaun Pollock
Wasim Akram
Richie Benaud

Batting All Rounders (may or may not be selected in their side as only a bowler)

Garry Sobers
Jaques Kallis
Steve Waugh

It's an interesting exercise to take all the great ARs an rank them as batsmen and bowlers against each other. I think it'd look like this:

Best batsmen among the great all-rounders:

Garry Sobers
Jaques Kallis
Steve Waugh
Keith Miller
Ian Botham
Imran Khan
Kapil Dev
Richie Benaud
Shaun Pollock
Richard Hadlee
Wasim Akram

Best bowlers among the great all rounders:

Hadlee
Akram
Imran
Miller
Benaud
Pollock
Kapil Dev
Botham
Kallis
Sobers
Waugh

 

[Jager]

Personally I wouldn't rate Waugh as a genuine all-rounder. Same goes for Akram, he was more of a bowler who could bat.

 

[SeamUp]

Two other South African all-rounders besides Barlow, Goddard, Faulkner, Procter, S.Pollock and Kallis are Clive Rice and Brian McMillan.

If Rice could have played test cricket during isolation there is no doubting he would have been up there with the best.

McMillan prob the best all-rounder in the world for a period in the mid 90's.

 

[kingkallis]

Howcome Faulkner is not in that list?

 

[Jager]

I should also say that I would rate Botham far above Kapil Dev in terms of bowling. Oh yeah, and Procter definitely needs a mention!

 

[smash84]

yeah wasim wasn't an all rounder at all.

Otherwise you can make a case for Warne and Marshall too

 

[Howe_zat]

Isn't making "their side" as a batsman and bowler an extremely relative thing? Imran for example wouldn't make most very good sides as a batsman, and indeed wouldn't make Pakistan's for the first 10 or so years of his career.

Why not have a team chock full of genuine allrounders?

Barlow
Rhodes
Kallis
Sobers
Miller
Gilchrist
Proctor
Faulkner
Imran
Botham
Hadlee

(Note: I know that there is a question mark about Rhodes being a true allrounder, but I can't think of too many openers who bowl well)

Interesting. I think Rhodes was a tremendous and fascinating cricketer, but I think he struggles to make the best side of allrounders seeing as he'd just be playing as an opener. I think Jayasuriya would be a candidate - 99 Test wickets and was a good one-day bowler for 20 years. If we stretch the definition a bit further, I'll go for Wally Hammond as well to give us the best batting possible in a team full of top-class bowlers.

I also think you've short-changed Faulkner and Botham in the batting order - Faulkner averaged 40 with the bat during a time when that was as good as most others in the world could manage (Jack Hobbs aside) and was the best South African bat for the majority of his career. Much more a Sobers than a Benaud. Beefy meanwhile was a proper, matchwinning batsman right from the off, unlike Imran who had to work himself into the middle order over many years of Test cricket, and only really came of age as a batsman after he had largely stopped bowling.

Barlow
Jayasuriya
Hammond
Kallis
Sobers
Faulkner
Miller
Gilchrist
Botham
Imran
Hadlee

 

[ankitj]

Goddard and Mankad to open in that XI IMO

 

[benchmark00]

It always takes me back at how highly Shaun pollock's batting, in particular, is rated on this forum. Surely has the most inflated batting statistics to actual ability ratio in the world. Was nothing more than a lower order player who was good for a bit of nuisance value on his day in my eyes.

And as a bowler he didn't scare me as an opposition supporter, but there's no doubting he was a very good operator.

 

[Spikey]

 

[benchmark00]

Seems a good bloke though. Wish him luck for his future endeavours.

 

[Red]

It always takes me back at how highly Shaun pollock's batting, in particular, is rated on this forum. Surely has the most inflated batting statistics to actual ability ratio in the world. Was nothing more than a lower order player who was good for a bit of nuisance value on his day in my eyes.

And as a bowler he didn't scare me as an opposition supporter, but there's no doubting he was a very good operator.

Batting average of 32 (in 108 tests) surely qualifies?

And he didn't need to scare many people with Donald operating from the other end.

On Akram v Marshall/Warne as all-rounders, I can see your point. But Akram's average was a bit higher, and he made a few test hundreds. Which is why I included him as a bowling all-rounder.

I'll concede on Steve Waugh, considering his bowling numbers aren't great, and he was primarily a batsman for most of his career. He was a brilliant ODI all-rounder though.

 

[NasserFan207]

Pollock was a quality batsman in his early career.

Also, Afridi? **** in at times, but sometimes amazing.

 

[watson]

Mankad or Goddard.

Rhodes still needs to fit into the team somewhere, IMO.

Barlow and Mankad then.

Barlow's enthusiasm, a 'hatrick' against England (includes Boycott, Cowdrey, Fletcher, I think, not sure), and a double century against Ritchie Benaud's team is too good to miss.

Eddie Barlow 12 wickets (and hat trick!) vs England 4th test 1970 - YouTube

4th Test: Australia v South Africa at Adelaide, Jan 24-29, 1964 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo



And a century by Mankad against Lindwall, Miller, Dooland, Johnston, and Johnson can't go unrewarded.

3rd Test: Australia v India at Melbourne, Jan 1-5, 1948 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

 

[ankitj]

Barlow takes less than 1.5 wickets a match. How is he classified as an all-rounder?

 

[Dan]

Barlow takes less than 1.5 wickets a match. How is he classified as an all-rounder?

He was an all-rounder in the '5th bowler who chips in' kind of mould. FTR, Kallis averages 1.8 wickets per match.

 

[watson]

Barlow takes less than 1.5 wickets a match. How is he classified as an all-rounder?

Perhaps Barlow was under-bowled because he was part of a strong South African team?

Anyway, 30 Tests and 40 wickets at 34.05 with a Strike Rate of 75.5 is good enough in my book.

Also, a small matter of 541 wickets at 24.14 with a Strike Rate of 55.9 during a First Class career spanning 24 years cannot be ignored. Even a full-time opening bowler would be happy striking every 55-56 balls.

I'm more worried why Steve Waugh has been classified as an allrounder. Needing 168 Tests in order to aquire only 92 wickets at 37.44 (Strike Rate of 84.8) is even less inspiring.

 

[Dan]

I'm more worried why Steve Waugh has been classified as an allrounder. Needing 168 Tests in order to aquire only 92 wickets at 37.44 (Strike Rate of 84.8) is even less inspiring.

During his early days he was a genuine ODI all rounder, but never really qualified as one in tests. Plus, he under-bowled himself when he became captain, given he had an attack of McGrath-Gillespie-Lee-Warne for much of his tenure, with his brother and Damien Martyn to fill the role of 5th bowler.

Should have taken ~150 wickets IMO. He was quite a good medium pacer.

 

[ankitj]

Fair enough. I'd still think Goddard and Mankad will be better choices. I confess though that I don't know a great deal about Barlow.

 

[Dan]

Fair enough. I'd still think Goddard and Mankad will be better choices. I confess though that I don't know a great deal about Barlow.

Can someone run a statsguru query on Goddard, Barlow, Mankad and Rhodes to work out their bowling stats for games in which they opened the batting? I just tried but it didn't work for me.