harsh.ag
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
This is to discuss whether Richie Benaud, Alan Davidson and Wilfred Rhodes (and anyone else you can find to put in this category, maybe Shaun Pollock) should be referred to as all-rounders or not.
Rhodes had a historic opening partnership with Sir Jack Hobbs (partnership average of 87!), but apart from that phase, he was a full time spinner, a great one, perhaps the first great one (discounting the mysteries of Sydney Barnes).
Benaud and Davidson both have similar records to Richard Hadlee, who is regarded as an all-rounder by all and sundry. I think if we challenge their claims of all-roundership(?), then we must do so for Hadlee too. And this should not be a taboo, I think.
There are others, maybe Shaun Pollock and Trevor Goddard could be in this conversation. Aubrey Faulkner, a fine batsman, had a bowling average of 26 which sounds fantastic by contemporary measures, but was quite high for his time.
What are your thoughts?
Rhodes had a historic opening partnership with Sir Jack Hobbs (partnership average of 87!), but apart from that phase, he was a full time spinner, a great one, perhaps the first great one (discounting the mysteries of Sydney Barnes).
Benaud and Davidson both have similar records to Richard Hadlee, who is regarded as an all-rounder by all and sundry. I think if we challenge their claims of all-roundership(?), then we must do so for Hadlee too. And this should not be a taboo, I think.
There are others, maybe Shaun Pollock and Trevor Goddard could be in this conversation. Aubrey Faulkner, a fine batsman, had a bowling average of 26 which sounds fantastic by contemporary measures, but was quite high for his time.
What are your thoughts?