• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

Would Jacques Kallis and Imran Khan get more respect if they weren't all-rounders?

Gowza

U19 12th Man
Yeah that's why you don't often get botham's and kapil's in all time XI's it's usually the ones that can make it purely for their strong suit alone with the other being a bonus, a bowling allrounder is more likely to be selected than a batting allrounder as well.
 
Last edited:

hendrix

Hall of Fame Member
Vettori was the best bat in NZ for 3-4 years when he was batting no 8
yeah and you can argue that Kallis has been one of the best bowlers at times too, I'm talking in terms of fitting these players in the team based on their skills. It's a false idea that there's an all-rounder's slot available; these guys have all had a primary and secondary skill and 99% of the time they've been picked on their primary skill.
 

OverratedSanity

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Don't think Imran is underrated by people as much as Akram is overrated tbh. Even on just bowling alone, Imran was imo greater. Wasim is picke in all those teams for the variation of his left arm bowling rather than him actually being considered a better bowler than Imran, and Co. On CW, Imran is rated about right (ie) one of the 5 greatest cricketers ever.

My thoughts on Kallis are that his batting is very overrated by people who think he's as good as the trifecta of Sachin, Lara, Ponting solely on the basis of his average ,while his bowling is underappreciated a great deal. Consistently picked up key wickets throughout his career.
 

kyear2

Cricketer Of The Year
Don't think Imran is underrated by people as much as Akram is overrated tbh. Even on just bowling alone, Imran was imo greater. Wasim is picke in all those teams for the variation of his left arm bowling rather than him actually being considered a better bowler than Imran, and Co. On CW, Imran is rated about right (ie) one of the 5 greatest cricketers ever.

My thoughts on Kallis are that his batting is very overrated by people who think he's as good as the trifecta of Sachin, Lara, Ponting solely on the basis of his average ,while his bowling is underappreciated a great deal. Consistently picked up key wickets throughout his career.
He doesn't make my top 5 (Bradman, Marshall, Sobers, Gilchrist, Hobbs/ Richards/ Warne), but around my top 10- 15 (Murali, Tendulkar, Lara, Imran, McGrath, Hadlee, Headley, Hutton)
 

subshakerz

International Coach
And in spite of all these wonderful numbers he never once had an all round series where he performed with both bat and ball, so regardless of what numbers someone shows, you'll never convince me he was an all round performer of the highest class.
Not true. Check out his series against England in 1982, where he topped both batting and bowling averages and outperformed Botham. Also, check his series against India in 1982/83. Against both WI in 1980 and England in 1987, he performed with the ball while scoring a century in the same series.
 

subshakerz

International Coach
I dont think Imran is underrated as a cricketer overall, though perhaps he is not put the level he deserves. I would consider him one of the 5 best ever. He gets selected in many all-time XIs, though one reason he isnt in more is because they aribtrarily limit themselves to only 1 all-rounder per team, giving the space to Sobers.

But, as I have said in the past, his captaincy and status as an all-rounder tend to overshadow his achievements with the ball. I would argue at his peak from 1980-83, when he had pace, skill and reverse/conventional swing mastered, he was the best fast bowler ever. It is still rated the highest peak by any post-WW2 bowler. And if you add in the fact that he was the first true paceman from the subcontinent, the first bowler to show the potential of reverse swing, and that unlike the overrated Warne, he actually left a bowling legacy that he singlehandedly inspired in Waqar, Wasim, Shoaib, etc, as a bowler alone Imran is right up there with any of the best, maybe a flicker below Hadlee/Marshall perhaps.
 

smash84

The Tiger King
He doesn't make my top 5 (Bradman, Marshall, Sobers, Gilchrist, Hobbs/ Richards/ Warne), but around my top 10- 15 (Murali, Tendulkar, Lara, Imran, McGrath, Hadlee, Headley, Hutton)
tbf you don't really represent a significant chunk of CW.
 

subshakerz

International Coach
Regarding Kallis, yes, he is underrated overall. The biggest reason is that he is a South African and they tend to be under the radar as far as cricket media/punditry goes. Look how much Flintoff was blown up compared to Kallis/Pollock who were far better cricketers. Even for Dale Steyn it look a long time and no clear opposition for no. 1 before he got his props.

However, I am pretty sure if Kallis were just a batsman, he would not be spoken of as anywhere near all-time great material. The only thing that puts him in contention is his bowling ability. I always rated Kallis as a world class batsman but not as an all-time great in batting alone. He was rung below Lara, Tendulkar and Ponting in that he rarely would dominate the opposition bowlers even if he was settled at the crease and has few if any standout masterclass knocks in his long career against high-quality bowling. No doubt he was technically correct and consistent but he also benefited a lot against some poor attacks. If he played his entire career in the 80s/90s, I dont think he would average 50 to be honest, probably in the mid-40s, same for a lot of batsmen with pretty records who batted in the 2000s.

While Imran still has a chance to take a position in an all-time XI, Kallis will never take Sober's position.
 

marc71178

Eyes not spreadsheets
Not true. Check out his series against England in 1982, where he topped both batting and bowling averages and outperformed Botham. Also, check his series against India in 1982/83. Against both WI in 1980 and England in 1987, he performed with the ball while scoring a century in the same series.
Yes true, over a whole series he had very good batting occasionally, very very good bowling often, but never combined the 2 over even a 3 match series. Performing both at the same time over a series (not just one innings or topping batting averages because he scored 120 runs and got dismissed twice - note this is just a what if numbers not an actual series) is an extreme skill owing to the workload involved. Sobers did it a lot. Early Botham did it as well. Imran never did.
 

Uppercut

Request Your Custom Title Now!
On another note, this got me thinking about Shaun Pollock vs Glenn McGrath. McGrath is picked in a lot of ATG teams (with good reason) for his better bowling record (albeit not significantly), but Pollock has a significantly better batting record (32.31 vs 7.36 batting average!).
I think that's legitimate because South Africa was a much easier place to bowl during their respective careers. But you would then have to apply that logic in support of Kallis too, and not many people do outside of CW.
 

subshakerz

International Coach
Yes true, over a whole series he had very good batting occasionally, very very good bowling often, but never combined the 2 over even a 3 match series. Performing both at the same time over a series (not just one innings or topping batting averages because he scored 120 runs and got dismissed twice - note this is just a what if numbers not an actual series) is an extreme skill owing to the workload involved. Sobers did it a lot. Early Botham did it as well. Imran never did.
I would say Imran did exactly that in the 1982 series against England, his first as captain. Scored precious runs while taking lots of wickets.
HowSTAT! Player Progressive Bowling
 

marc71178

Eyes not spreadsheets
Apologies, I remember looking at it all a long while ago and thought that he never did it but on revisiting that I see he did do it once (out of 21 series).

For reference it was scoring 50 or more runs per match AND taking 4 or more wickets per match over a series of 3 or more matches.
 

Daemon

Request Your Custom Title Now!
I get the feeling if Kallis had've just been a bowler, he probably would've taken 6-700 test wickets. In addition to all this, he is one of the greatest slip fielders of all time.
But he did... :ph34r:
 

NUFAN

Y no Afghanistan flag
Actually, although I agreed with this post, I just thought of a counterargument.

Because of their allround skills, neither Kallis nor Imran got the best conditions in which to use their secondary skill. Kallis, for example, was more often used against set batsmen without a new ball in his arsenal - otherwise he may have averaged 26-27 with the ball
This really isn't true. Kallis frequently bowled in the first hour of a Test match. In matches where Kallis bowled well, he'd bowl more overs. In the games where he was ineffectual, he wouldn't bowl as much, thus protect his figures more than a front liner. He obviously performed superbly with the ball against the two weakest batting lineups too, which isn't his fault but flatters his overall bowling careers a little bit. This makes me think that a 26-27 career bowling average is better than what Kallis was capable of.
 

marc71178

Eyes not spreadsheets
This really isn't true. Kallis frequently bowled in the first hour of a Test match. In matches where Kallis bowled well, he'd bowl more overs. In the games where he was ineffectual, he wouldn't bowl as much, thus protect his figures more than a front liner. He obviously performed superbly with the ball against the two weakest batting lineups too, which isn't his fault but flatters his overall bowling careers a little bit. This makes me think that a 26-27 career bowling average is better than what Kallis was capable of.
Something he was keen on at other times, especially when he was too injured to bowl when England were racking up a load but 2 weeks later was fine when Zimbabwe came to play...
 

viriya

International Captain
I knew someone would mention that one, but in 6 matches he scored 241 runs, that is not a big batting output.
So his team has to fail for him to be an all-rounder? It's not his fault he only batted 5 times.. your conditions are pretty ridiculous.

I can accept that he didn't play as a pure all-rounder for most of his career, but I'm not sure why you keep claiming he never did both together in a series when it's plainly not true.
 
Last edited:

Top