Allrounders XI vs. Specialists XI

[watson]

Specialists
01. Jack Hobbs
02. Len Hutton
03. Don Bradman
04. Sachin Tendulkar
05. Viv Richards
06. Greg Chappell
07. Bert Oldfield
08. Malcolm Marshall
09. Shane Warne
10. Dennis Lillee
11. Sydney Barnes


Allrounders
01. WG Grace
02. Trevor Goddard
03. Jacques Kallis
04. Garry Sobers
05. Keith Miller
06. Aubrey Faulkner
07. Adam Gilchrist
08. Monty Noble
09. Richie Benaud
10. Imran Khan
11. Richard Hadlee

 

[Red]

Specialist batsmen shouldn't have taken a test wicket. Specialist bowlers shouldn't have a test ton.

The all rounders should be able to hold their place in a normal test team on either skill (or be very close to it).

 

[andruid]

The cheeky part of me is hoping Dmitri Mascarenhas and Chris Martin (not the reggae singer) turn up at some point in the discussion. On a more serious point, shouldn't the keeper in the specialist XI be a pure gloveman.?

 

[jimmy101]

Look, OS isn't that far off the mark. There is every reason that Steyn could be & is and was as good as Curtly in his pomp.

Look in your heart, you know it be true.

EDIT: Steyn is/was really ****ing good.

 

[zaremba]

Specialist batsmen shouldn't have taken a test wicket. Specialist bowlers shouldn't have a test ton.

The all rounders should be able to hold their place in a normal test team on either skill (or be very close to it).

Doesn't this leave a lot of players who fall between two stools? Among others Bradman, Tendulkar, Hobbs, Viv Richards, Barry Richards, Gillespie, G Pollock, Cook, Gower, da Silva, Vaas, G Chappell, I Chappell, Ponting, Mallender?

 

[Red]

Specialist batsmen shouldn't have taken a test wicket. Specialist bowlers shouldn't have a test ton.

The all rounders should be able to hold their place in a normal test team on either skill (or be very close to it).

On this criteria:

Specialists

Gordon Greenidge
Herb Sutcliffe
Rohan Kanhai
Brian Lara
Peter May
Inzamam ul Haq
Bert Oldfield +
Malcolm Marshall
Dale Steyn
Shane Warne
Glenn McGrath


All Rounders

Trevor Goddard
Jack Gregory
Jaques Kallis
Keith Miller
Garry Sobers
Shakib Al Hasan
Adam Gilchrist +
Ian Botham
Kapil Dev
Imran Khan
Aubrey Faulkner

 

[Red]

Batting all rounders and bowling all rounders XI to play the above two in a three way series

Sanath Jayasuriya
Shane Watson
Kumar Sangakkara +
Carl Hooper
Steve Waugh
Doug Walters
Andrew Symonds
Wasim Akram
Alan Davidson
Shaun Pollock
Richie Benaud

 

[Red]

Doesn't this leave a lot of players who fall between two stools? Among others Bradman, Tendulkar, Hobbs, Viv Richards, Barry Richards, Gillespie, G Pollock, Cook, Gower, da Silva, Vaas, G Chappell, I Chappell, Ponting, Mallender?

Guess so. But I figure the specialist batsmen are best described as not taking a wicket and bowlers who have scored a ton are obviously handy enough batsmen. But I just like making criteria for the sake of it tbh!

I take your point, but I just wanted some parameters.

 

[watson]

Guess so. But I figure the specialist batsmen are best described as not taking a wicket and bowlers who have scored a ton are obviously handy enough batsmen. But I just like making criteria for the sake of it tbh!

I take your point, but I just wanted some parameters.

Agree with not scoring a ton, but the specialist bowler should also have a batting average in the teens or less. Alan Davidson never scored a Test century, but most people consider him an allrounder because he averaged 25 with the bat.

I was surprised that Tendulkar had 46 Test wickets to his name when I looked him up, but still find it hard to see him as an allrounder. Perhaps 'wickets per match' is a reasonsble criteria - must be less than 0.5, or something like that.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

In the modern game there's no such thing as a specialist keeper. The speciality for that position is now very much Batsman/Keeper - in that order of talent preference.

 

[JRC67]

I can't think of any all rounder who hasn't been in the team mainly for one skill or the other. Sometimes the main reason for selection changes over time - initially Botham was a bowler who could bat, he was then a genuine all rounder for a time before being picked more as a batsman who could bowl a bit of medium pace. I'm not really sure Kallis would have ever been picked as a bowler as for much of his career South Africa had a pretty decent collection of quicks. The great all rounders I've seen:

Sobers - batsman
Greig - batsman (although pretty close to equal on both)
Botham - bowler
Kapil Dev - bowler
Hadlee - bowler
Imran Khan - bowler
Wasim - bowler
Freddie - bowler
Kallis - batsman

Sobers, Botham and Greig would probably have got in a test team for their weaker suit for a period of their careers, but I'm not sure any of the others would. As an observation in the more professional era when bowlers are expected to work on their batting it seem odd that batsman don't really seem to develop their bowling when they got close to the national team. Root has enough talent as a bowler to develop as a fifth bowling option in a four man attack, but doesn't really seem to have progressed much over the last couple of years. Collingwood's bowling went backwards when he got in to the test team. I'd say both the current England all rounders are mainly picked for their batting, although Stokes is pretty close to being in the top 4 seamers in the country when bowling at his best. If selected would Borthwick be classed as a batsman or all rounder - he wouldn't get close to the test team as a bowler but I'd imagine he would probably bowl a similar number of overs to Ali during an innings and will add a bit of variety to the attack.

 

[StephenZA]

I can't think of any all rounder who hasn't been in the team mainly for one skill or the other. Sometimes the main reason for selection changes over time - initially Botham was a bowler who could bat, he was then a genuine all rounder for a time before being picked more as a batsman who could bowl a bit of medium pace. I'm not really sure Kallis would have ever been picked as a bowler as for much of his career South Africa had a pretty decent collection of quicks. The great all rounders I've seen:

Sobers - batsman
Greig - batsman (although pretty close to equal on both)
Botham - bowler
Kapil Dev - bowler
Hadlee - bowler
Imran Khan - bowler
Wasim - bowler
Freddie - bowler
Kallis - batsman

Sobers, Botham and Greig would probably have got in a test team for their weaker suit for a period of their careers, but I'm not sure any of the others would. As an observation in the more professional era when bowlers are expected to work on their batting it seem odd that batsman don't really seem to develop their bowling when they got close to the national team. Root has enough talent as a bowler to develop as a fifth bowling option in a four man attack, but doesn't really seem to have progressed much over the last couple of years. Collingwood's bowling went backwards when he got in to the test team. I'd say both the current England all rounders are mainly picked for their batting, although Stokes is pretty close to being in the top 4 seamers in the country when bowling at his best. If selected would Borthwick be classed as a batsman or all rounder - he wouldn't get close to the test team as a bowler but I'd imagine he would probably bowl a similar number of overs to Ali during an innings and will add a bit of variety to the attack.

Kallis would have made it into most teams in the first half of his career purely as a swing bowler, he generally played first change (and even opened on a few occasions) for SA. His batting was obviously his stronger suit, and his bowling went away as he got older...
Kallis was a better bowler than Sobers (who was a much more devastating batsmen), possibly equal to Botham (maybe a little less) and definitely better than Flintoff.

 

[vcs]

Kallis would have made it into most teams in the first half of his career purely as a swing bowler, he generally played first change (and even opened on a few occasions) for SA. His batting was obviously his stronger suit, and his bowling went away as he got older...
Kallis was a better bowler than Sobers (who was a much more devastating batsmen), possibly equal to Botham (maybe a little less) and definitely better than Flintoff.

Don't agree with that.. he was a fantastic option for SA, but his bowling stats definitely flatter him a bit.

 

[JRC67]

Kallis would have made it into most teams in the first half of his career purely as a swing bowler, he generally played first change (and even opened on a few occasions) for SA. His batting was obviously his stronger suit, and his bowling went away as he got older...
Kallis was a better bowler than Sobers (who was a much more devastating batsmen), possibly equal to Botham (maybe a little less) and definitely better than Flintoff.

Kallis at the end of his career was better than Botham at the end of his, but at his peak (early to mid 20's) Botham was one of the best bowlers in the world. Kallis vs Flintoff at their peaks would be hard to compare. Kallis was consistent throughout his career averaging around 30, Flintoff had a golden spell 2004 - 06 when he was up there with the best bowlers in the world, but over his whole career I'd agree Kallis was the better bowler. SA also managed his bowling quite well as he only bowled an average of 20 overs a game, probably in part because he was such a good batsman - but it did mean he didn't have a lot of 30 over innings on unresponsive pitches to bring his overall average down.

 

[StephenZA]

Don't agree with that.. he was a fantastic option for SA, but his bowling stats definitely flatter him a bit.

Kallis at the end of his career was better than Botham at the end of his, but at his peak (early to mid 20's) Botham was one of the best bowlers in the world. Kallis vs Flintoff at their peaks would be hard to compare. Kallis was consistent throughout his career averaging around 30, Flintoff had a golden spell 2004 - 06 when he was up there with the best bowlers in the world, but over his whole career I'd agree Kallis was the better bowler. SA also managed his bowling quite well as he only bowled an average of 20 overs a game, probably in part because he was such a good batsman - but it did mean he didn't have a lot of 30 over innings on unresponsive pitches to bring his overall average down.

I was just disagreeing with the statement he would not have made it into teams on bowling alone... considering it was his 'second' skill 140+km/h accurate swing bowler with a pretty good bouncer gets into most teams. I feel his stats under sell his bowling ability... he was so integral for SA at the top of the order and SA had so many all-rounders that they avoided bowling him. The number of times I watched Kallis take 1 or 2 wickets in a brilliant spell then get pulled off for Donald/Pollock/Steyn etc to finish it off was too often... so while he did not have many 30 overs in an innings, he was also taken off when he probably could have taken more wickets...

 

[zaremba]

I share the view that Kallis' performance would not have justified a substantial career in the SA team as a bowler alone. Having said that, in the parallel universe where he couldn't bat, he might have focussed that much more on his bowling and so might have been better than he was.

 

[Red]

Kallis was a better bowler than Sobers (who was a much more devastating batsmen), possibly equal to Botham (maybe a little less) and definitely better than Flintoff.

I'm not sure how you can definitively say Kallis was a better bowler than Sobers. Peak Flintoff as a bowler was far better than Kallis.

 

[Red]

I can't think of any all rounder who hasn't been in the team mainly for one skill or the other. Sometimes the main reason for selection changes over time - initially Botham was a bowler who could bat, he was then a genuine all rounder for a time before being picked more as a batsman who could bowl a bit of medium pace. I'm not really sure Kallis would have ever been picked as a bowler as for much of his career South Africa had a pretty decent collection of quicks. The great all rounders I've seen:

Sobers - batsman
Greig - batsman (although pretty close to equal on both)
Botham - bowler
Kapil Dev - bowler
Hadlee - bowler
Imran Khan - bowler
Wasim - bowler
Freddie - bowler
Kallis - batsman

Sobers, Botham and Greig would probably have got in a test team for their weaker suit for a period of their careers, but I'm not sure any of the others would. As an observation in the more professional era when bowlers are expected to work on their batting it seem odd that batsman don't really seem to develop their bowling when they got close to the national team. Root has enough talent as a bowler to develop as a fifth bowling option in a four man attack, but doesn't really seem to have progressed much over the last couple of years. Collingwood's bowling went backwards when he got in to the test team. I'd say both the current England all rounders are mainly picked for their batting, although Stokes is pretty close to being in the top 4 seamers in the country when bowling at his best. If selected would Borthwick be classed as a batsman or all rounder - he wouldn't get close to the test team as a bowler but I'd imagine he would probably bowl a similar number of overs to Ali during an innings and will add a bit of variety to the attack.

Sobers - would have been selected on either skill
Greig - more for batting but selected as a proper AR
Botham - bowler initially, but spent the majority of his career at 6 and would've been selected plenty on his batting alone
Kapil Dev - bowler, but would have played some tests as a number 6
Hadlee - bowler, but might have played for NZ on batting alone
Imran Khan - bowler initially but similar to Botham, he would have played tests on his batting alone
Wasim - bowler
Freddie - bowler, but could have been selected as a batsman
Kallis - batsman, but would have played some tests as a pace bowler, and would definitely have played some tests as a bowler for weaker nations or India.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Kallis a better bowler than Flintoff now?

I guess he did it over a much longer time period whereas Flintoff was only really a good bowler for ~ a 5 year period

 

[watson]

Incidently, the ICC calculates their peak Allrounder Rating by using the following formula. It's calculated at a single point in time;

(Batting Rating x Bowling Rating) / 1000

How do you rate all-rounders?

We have devised an all-rounder index that gives a good indication of who the best all-rounders in the world are in Test and One Day cricket. To obtain the index, simply take the player's batting and bowling points, multiply them together and divide by 1000. So a player with 800 batting and 0 bowling gets an index of zero (because he can't bowl and therefore isn't an all-rounder!), 600 batting/200 bowling gets 120, and 400 batting/400 bowling points gets an index of 160. An index of 300 plus is world class. There are far more all-rounders in ODIs than Tests, but the same names tend to appear high in both lists. Incidentally, this index does omit one important all-rounder skill, namely fielding. There is no satisfactory way of rating fielding skills statistically at present.

FAQ - Cricket Player Ranking | ICC Cricket

Any player with an Allrounder Rating of 300 or more is considered 'World Class'. Here are some examples that I looked-up. Unfortunately the ICC has not published an AT Highest list as it has for Batting and Bowling.

Sobers to Cairns round off the top 10 that I have found so far;


Garry Sobers (1967) = 669
Ian Botham (1980) = 646
Jacques Kallis (2002) = 616
Keith Miller (1952) = 573
Richie Benaud (1959) = 532
Imran Khan (1983) = 518
Tony Greig (1975) = 509
Aubrey Faulkner (1912) = 501
Andrew Flintoff (2005) = 501
Chris Cairns (2000) = 500
Shaun Pollock (2003) = 490
Richard Hadlee (1987) = 487
Alan Davidson (1961) = 474
Trevor Goddard (1967) = 469
Monty Noble (1904) = 451
Brian McMillan (1997) = 449
Kapil Dev (1981) = 433
Shakib al Hasan (2014) = 419
George Giffen (1896) = 418
Trevor Bailey (1957) = 417
Vinoo Mankad (1952) = 417
Daniel Vettori (2009) = 412
Wally Hammond (1937) = 386
Mushtaq Mohamad (1977) = 386
Stuart Broad (2012) = 382
Warwick Armstrong (1921) = 375
Ray Lindwall (1952) = 374
Sanath Jayasuriya (2005) = 356
Wasim Akram (2000) = 355
Frank Woolley (1913) = 349
Hedley Verity (1934) = 344
Malcolm Marshall (1988) = 341
Frank Worrell (1953) = 321
Ravi Shastri (1984) = 311
Wilfred Rhodes (1913) = 309
Chaminda Vaas (2008) = 300
Hugh Tayfield (1957) = 298
Maurice Tate (1929) = 286
Ben Stokes (2016) = 276
Shane Warne (2005) = 274
Peter Pollock (1970) = 259
Stan McCabe (1938) = 253
Bobby Peel (1895) = 249
Fazal Mahmood (1959) = 249
Anil Kumble (2008) = 242
Lance Cairns (1984) = 224
Dennis Lillee (1977) = 223
WG Grace (1890) = 207
Sachin Tendulkar (2001) = 205
Jim Laker (1956) = 202
Greg Chappell (1981) = 195
Viv Richards (1981) = 168
Derek Underwood (1974) = 160
Glenn McGrath (2005) = 110
Don Bradman (1933) = 56


Looking at that list - I reckon (as a guess) that anyone with an ICC Rating of less than or equal to 275 is a Specialist and anyone over 275 is an Allrounder.

Wilfred Rhodes is interesting. Yes he is an allrounder, but he is inferior to Lindwall, Jayasuriya, Wasim, Verity, Marshall, Worrell and Shastri.