Allrounders XI vs. Specialists XI

[OverratedSanity]

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

I wouldn't say they "flatter" him necessarily, but comparing an average of 30 odd bowling second change with an average of 30 odd leading the attack is disingenuous. Kallis wasn't nearly as good a bowler as Zaheer, Flintoff, etc who had similar statistics.

 

[smash84]

I think a peak kallis as a bowler was comparable to flintoff as a bowler. Zaheer better than both obv.

 

[bagapath]

All-rounders XI

Rhodes
Mankad ---- > both were world class spinners and adequate openers. this ability to open makes them all rounders; gives their teams an option to select an extra bowler/batter
Kallis
Sobers ------> two batsmen who were legitimate third/fourth bowling options by any standard
Faulkner
Shakib ------------> two very reliable middle order batsmen and serious bowlers.
Miller ------------> the perfect all-rounder
Gilchrist (wk) -------------> Sanga and De Villiers can play as batsmen alone. But Gilly is the ultimate WK all-rounder. Cant peg one skill over the other. The ultimate package.
Imran
Botham
S.Pollock ---------> Three match winning bowlers who could bat out the opposition at times


Specialists XI

Hobbs
Hutton
Ponting
Bradman
Lara
Evans (wk)
Trueman
Ambrose
Lillee
O'Reilley
McGrath

 

[JRC67]

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.

I think of the bowlers who became batsmen only Imran had a batting average which would have definitely resulted in a long career as a batsman. Botham and Kapil Dev were in the low 30s and I think Hadlee was under 30. I suppose the debate is did being able to bowl hinder their batting ... or reduce the pressure to bat well and make them better batsmen. I don't really know enough about Sobers to comment .... he played in the first test I saw live when I was about 6 so my memory of him was scoring about 50 at Edgbaston (I think) and batting well down the order. The player I missed from what I consider to be the great all rounders I've seen was Ravi Shastri. I don't think his stats are great but I think the sum of his parts were better than the numbers. He was the type of bowler you could leave to bowl at one end for a whole day and concede very few runs and a very obdurate opening batsman. He was probably the only one who at different times was definitely selected as a batsman and a bowler. It's surprising that most all rounders of the last 45 years have been seamers, most of the spinners I can remember were decent batmen rather than having pretensions to being top 6 batsmen - or top order batsmen with pretensions to be spin bowlers.

 

[ImpatientLime]

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 isn't even in the same stratosphere as botham when it comes to bowling.

kallis

5fers - 5
10fers - 0

botham

5fers - 27
10fers - 4

 

[harsh.ag]

Yeah, some weird ideas on the page. Kallis' and Botham's bowling being compared favourably and Imran being called a better batsman than Botham.

Botham being incredibly underrated, and this comes from a guy who generally does underrate Botham.

 

[JRC67]

Yeah, some weird ideas on the page. Kallis' and Botham's bowling being compared favourably and Imran being called a better batsman than Botham.

Botham being incredibly underrated, and this comes from a guy who generally does underrate Botham.

Imran had a far higher batting average over his whole career. Botham's batting was pretty good until about 84, 79 - 84 he would have got in to the team as a batsman. Imran's average started pretty low and improved throughout his career. How do you define the best batsman, over a whole career, or for a period when they are on fire? In 11 of Imran's last 15 series he averaged over 45 and in 10 of those series he was over 50. Botham only had 6 series in his whole career where he managed to average over 40 and one of those was actually a one off test match. In England we tend to under estimate how good Imran became as a batsman - but I think in part its because he played quite a lot of his early tests against England when is record wasn't that good and therefore we saw him as a bowler who scored some odd runs.

 

[harsh.ag]

Imran had a far higher batting average over his whole career. Botham's batting was pretty good until about 84, 79 - 84 he would have got in to the team as a batsman. Imran's average started pretty low and improved throughout his career. How do you define the best batsman, over a whole career, or for a period when they are on fire? In 11 of Imran's last 15 series he averaged over 45 and in 10 of those series he was over 50. Botham only had 6 series in his whole career where he managed to average over 40 and one of those was actually a one off test match. In England we tend to under estimate how good Imran became as a batsman - but I think in part its because he played quite a lot of his early tests against England when is record wasn't that good and therefore we saw him as a bowler who scored some odd runs.

Average can sometimes tell only part of a story. Botham was much more of a frontline batsman. Scored 14 hundreds compared to Imran's 6. Botham's runs per innings is also higher than Imran's. Imran has a lot of not outs.

 

[JRC67]

Average can sometimes tell only part of a story. Botham was much more of a frontline batsman. Scored 14 hundreds compared to Imran's 6. Botham's runs per innings is also higher than Imran's. Imran has a lot of not outs.

It comes back to what is being compared - whole career or peak. At his peak I'd agree Botham was the better batsman. The last 8 years of his career was really very average. Imran as Captain declared innings a couple of times when he was in the 90s, so he could easily have scored a couple more 100s and played fewer tests. If Imran had stopped bowling and not retired he would have played for a couple of years as a batsman. Botham peaked as a batsman and bowler at about the same time, Imran peaked as a bowler and then much later as a batsman.

 

[zaremba]

On this criteria:

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

Unbelievably good team. Procter and Rice would also qualify I think. God knows who they'd displace though.

 

[Gowza]

Eddie Barlow wouldn't look too out of place either.

 

[vcs]

Surprised to see Shakib getting into these teams.. surely there's better options?

 

[Red]

Surprised to see Shakib getting into these teams.. surely there's better options?

There's not a lot of genuine frontline spinning all rounders that would bat top 6.

Shakib
Aubrey Faulkner
??

 

[OverratedSanity]

There's not a lot of genuine frontline spinning all rounders that would bat top 6.

Shakib
Aubrey Faulkner
??

Vinoo Mankad and Muhtaq Muhammad. Surprising both of them have hardly got a mention.

 

[Coronis]

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




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.

This is probably due to Rhodes not really bowling much when he opened with Hobbs.

 

[Shady Slim]

i'd call the allrounders winning more the stricter the parameters become

you get to the stage where all your specialist bowlers are number 11 bats and you have four number 11 bats in your team so you become practically six out all out

edit:

basically say each player had a "stat" rating out of 100, and i am just making these stats up from the top of my head:

murali
batting: 10
bowling: 95

ponting
batting: 90
bowling: 15

kallis:
batting: 80
bowling: 70

imran
batting: 75
bowling: 80

the specialists would have a "total rating" of 100-120 out of 200 while all the ARs will have a total rating of 140-170

 

[OverratedSanity]

Imran is more like 40 95

 

[Red]

FWIW



Specialists

Gordon Greenidge Batting 80 ---Bowling 0
Herb Sutcliffe Batting 85 --- Bowling 0
Rohan Kanhai Batting 80 --- Bowling 0
Brian Lara Batting 95 ---Bowling 0
Peter May Batting 82 --- Bowling 0
Inzamam ul Haq Batting 81 --- Bowling 0
Bert Oldfield + Batting 15 --- Bowling N/A
Malcolm Marshall Batting 30 --- Bowling 100
Dale Steyn Batting 10 --- Bowling 90
Shane Warne Batting 30 --- Bowling 100
Glenn McGrath Batting 2 --- Bowling 100


All Rounders

Trevor Goddard Batting 70 --- Bowling 65
Jack Gregory Batting 65 --- Bowling 65
Jaques Kallis Batting 90 --- Bowling 60
Keith Miller Batting 75 --- Bowling 85
Garry Sobers Batting 100 --- Bowling 60
Shakib Al Hasan Batting 60 --- Bowling 65
Adam Gilchrist + Batting 85 --- Bowling N/A
Ian Botham Batting 75 --- Bowling 80
Kapil Dev Batting 60 --- Bowling 82
Imran Khan Batting 45 --- Bowling 90
Aubrey Faulkner Batting 75 --- Bowling 60

 

[smash84]

Botham, dev, kallis, Miller all have significantly better total score than imran?

 

[mr_mister]

Red Hill you've given Aubrey Faulkner the 5th best batting rating yet have him as your 11 wtf lol