Imran Khan vs Richard Hadlee

[Anil]

hadlee the greater bowler and fielder, but imran the significantly better batsman...probably imran overall but not by much...

 

[Godard]

Hadlee overall slightly. Imran is in the top the 10 pacers ever, but Hadlee is in the top 3 ever, and amongst the six(except Bradman)or so I consider to have absolutely mastered their respective disciplines(others being Sachin, Marshall, McGrath, Hobbs, Viv). Even in this group, Sachin and Marshall stand out. The difference between their primary skills and Imran’s bowling is for me equal to the difference between Imran’s batting and Marshall’s odd use as a lower order bat and Sachin’s part time bowling. However in Hadlee’s case the difference between his and Imran’s secondary skill(batting) is lesser than above mentioned and I consider Hadlee to be closer to Marshall than Imran in bowling(if he was midway it would be a tie between him and Imran), so for me the difference in Hadlee and Imran’s bowling is by the slightest margins more than the difference in their batting.

 

[subshakerz]

Hadlee overall slightly. Imran is in the top the 10 pacers ever, but Hadlee is in the top 3 ever, and amongst the six(except Bradman)or so I consider to have absolutely mastered their respective disciplines(others being Sachin, Marshall, McGrath, Hobbs, Viv). Even in this group, Sachin and Marshall stand out. The difference between their primary skills and Imran’s bowling is for me equal to the difference between Imran’s batting and Marshall’s odd use as a lower order bat and Sachin’s part time bowling. However in Hadlee’s case the difference between his and Imran’s secondary skill(batting) is lesser than above mentioned and I consider Hadlee to be closer to Marshall than Imran in bowling(if he was midway it would be a tie between him and Imran), so for me the difference in Hadlee and Imran’s bowling is by the slightest margins more than the difference in their batting.

I rate Imran in the top five pacers ever so the difference in bowling is not enough for me. Imran is a proper lower order bat while Hadlee is a borderline tailender. Also captaincy in Imran's favor.

 

[Ashes81]

Hadlee for me - he's the 2nd best bowler I've seen after Marshall.

Obviously Imran was a great bowler and a better bat than Hadlee but Hadlee was a simply brilliant bowler and a more than useful lower order batsman.

 

[Godard]

I rate Imran in the top five pacers ever so the difference in bowling is not enough for me. Imran is a proper lower order bat while Hadlee is a borderline tailender. Also captaincy in Imran's favor.

Hadlee averages 27 and averaged in the mid 30s for the last 60% of his career so not a borderline tailender. I don’t consider Imran a top 5 pacer, just outside, but for me there is a gap(not huge, but noticeable) between the top 3 pacers ever McGrath, Marshall and Hadlee and the others. But sure it is very much possible and reasonable to rate Imran amongst the top 5 pacers and better than Hadlee as a player. I also have to mention that Imran is a better allrounder in my view, Hadlee however the better player, both top 6 of all time.

 

[subshakerz]

Hadlee averages 27 and averaged in the mid 30s for the last 60% of his career so not a borderline tailender. I don’t consider Imran a top 5 pacer, just outside, but for me there is a gap(not huge, but noticeable) between the top 3 pacers ever McGrath, Marshall and Hadlee and the others. But sure it is very much possible and reasonable to rate Imran amongst the top 5 pacers and better than Hadlee as a player. I also have to mention that Imran is a better allrounder in my view, Hadlee however the better player, both top 6 of all time.

Yeah Imran vs. Hadlee is close. It's a bit subjective how one rates the difference in their bowling and batting.

Imran was a proper lower order bat for me, and the idea of a top tier ATG bowler and genuine batsman is too tempting a combo to not rate that highly.

 

[ashley bach]

Imran no doubt also gets some points for winning a world cup, especially given it was down under.

 

[shortpitched713]

I think this is extremely close, and I flip flop on this a lot.

As all-rounders, I think the nod has to go to Imran, due to his ability at his mid career (admitedly small and injury prone) peak. Hadlee's batting was never quite that good.

I might get my Pakistani heritage revoked, but as an overall cricketer over the course of the career though, I would probably edge Hadlee slightly for his bowling being more reliable throughout the course of the career. Although Imran had the higher peak performances for mine. I might be influenced by the poll results being against Hadlee currently...

Edit: I only used Test cricket performance for comparison, as I find multi-format comparisons extremely fraught, and add an additional element of how much you value certain achievements, individual matches and series, and other subjective elements.

 

[Slifer]

Imran is to Hadlee what Sachin is to Lara. They close but Imran is a better cricketer.

 

[Godard]

Yeah Imran vs. Hadlee is close. It's a bit subjective how one rates the difference in their bowling and batting.

Imran was a proper lower order bat for me, and the idea of a top tier ATG bowler and genuine batsman is too tempting a combo to not rate that highly.

Agreed. Depends on how high one rates Imran as a bowler(top 10 as compared to top 5 or so), and yes ofc Imran was the better bat.

 

[Kirkut]

Hadlee the better bowler overall, but Imran Khan at his peak was possibly tougher to face with being 10 km/hr faster than Hadee and late reverse swing.

 

[ankitj]

Hadlee overall slightly. Imran is in the top the 10 pacers ever, but Hadlee is in the top 3 ever, and amongst the six(except Bradman)or so I consider to have absolutely mastered their respective disciplines(others being Sachin, Marshall, McGrath, Hobbs, Viv). Even in this group, Sachin and Marshall stand out. The difference between their primary skills and Imran’s bowling is for me equal to the difference between Imran’s batting and Marshall’s odd use as a lower order bat and Sachin’s part time bowling. However in Hadlee’s case the difference between his and Imran’s secondary skill(batting) is lesser than above mentioned and I consider Hadlee to be closer to Marshall than Imran in bowling(if he was midway it would be a tie between him and Imran), so for me the difference in Hadlee and Imran’s bowling is by the slightest margins more than the difference in their batting.

Agree with some of this assessment. This is why Hadlee is in my top 5 test cricketers of all time. I disagree with some of the assessment which is why Imran is still ahead of Hadlee.

 

[ankitj]

Hadlee averages 27 and averaged in the mid 30s for the last 60% of his career so not a borderline tailender.

You might want to check Imran's batting average in last 60% of his career. ?

 

[trundler]

Imran, better all rounder. Hadlee, better bowler. Overall, super close. Could be persuaded either way.

 

[subshakerz]

Hadlee the better bowler overall, but Imran Khan at his peak was possibly tougher to face with being 10 km/hr faster than Hadee and late reverse swing.

Imran Khan until 1988 was a better bowler than Hadlee IMO. It's only the last three to four years of his career in which Hadlee overtook him.

Hadlee never toured Pakistan in the 80s and would have been interested to see how he would have done there. He only toured WI once and it was a moderate series by his standards.

 

[thierry henry]

There seems to be an argument in play here that the difference between a top-5 all time and top-10 all time bowler might outweigh a relatively significant difference in batting ability between two non-elite batsmen. The logic underpinning this must be that the closer you get to elite status, the more significant the differences between players becomes. I'm not sure this makes a lot of sense either intuitively or statistically. If anything I would've thought the differences between elite ATGs tend to be marginal whereas a batting average gap of 10 is an obvious and significant difference.

 

[shortpitched713]

There's another piece, which is that bowling contributions of a full time bowler are more important than any single player's batting contribution, let alone those of generally lower order batsmen.

 

[CricAddict]

Not sure how Hadlee got 13 votes. Hadlee and Imran are very much equals in bowling while Imran is a much better bat.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Not sure how Hadlee got 13 votes. Hadlee and Imran are very much equals in bowling while Imran is a much better bat.

Hadlee is in the same tier as Marshall and McGrath, while Imran is a tier or two below. Note that I still voted for Imran despite being from NZ due to batting and captaincy.

 

[Flem274*]

There seems to be an argument in play here that the difference between a top-5 all time and top-10 all time bowler might outweigh a relatively significant difference in batting ability between two non-elite batsmen. The logic underpinning this must be that the closer you get to elite status, the more significant the differences between players becomes. I'm not sure this makes a lot of sense either intuitively or statistically. If anything I would've thought the differences between elite ATGs tend to be marginal whereas a batting average gap of 10 is an obvious and significant difference.

This is my thinking too. You can throw a blanket over the top 10-20 quicks, and even the extreme ends of it (McGrath and Pollock say) the noticeable but small gap in bowling doesn't nerd the bowling allrounder h4x.

In this case it's an 8 vs a 7 but Imran is the premium semi-balanced allrounder.

Both make my all time side. They're two of the very best quicks ever yet unlike several rivals they contribute real reliability with the bat rather than being bunnies or Starc/Broad style cameo cricketers.