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10 best all rounders ever.

Francis

State Vice-Captain
The ten best all-rounder ever in your opinion.

1. Sir Garfield Sobers
2. Imran Khan
3. Ian Botham
4. Keith Miller
5. Sir Richard Hadlee
6. Wasim Akram
7. Kapil Dev
8. Mike Proctor
9. Ritchie Benaud
10. Tony Greig

A few guys there like Akram, Benaud and Hadlee and who you might not consider all-rounders, which is fair enough. They're like diamonds, true all rounders. It's like taking 12 men on to the field. And there are so few of them. I think it's like spin bowlers. Warne reminded us of the value of having a good spin bowler. I think Freddie has reminded us all of the value of a good all-rounder. Problem is... there's so few of them. From what I've seen, Shane Watson is a total waste of time.

Anyway the top 2 are a mortal lock for me. Easy picks. I picked Botham because of his sudden impact on games and it's often said he was much greater than his stats indicated. It's a shame people like Jack Hobbs and Keith Miller didn't try their best all the time. Miller could have gone on to be as great at Imran Khan I believe, but he was there for fun and was just as likely to get stumped charging down the pitch trying to hit a six. Hadlee I don't rate as highly as others and I think stats influence people too much when he's talked about. One of the greatest though. Comparing Hadlee to Botham is like comparing Warne to Flintoff in the Ashes. Warne made handy runs and got many more wickets and is clearly the better bowler. But Flintoff was more likely to impact the game in both way in more effective ways... and like Botham, did them in all the right places. Be it bowling Australia out on day 4 of the fifth tests. Making an extra 50 runs with Simon Jones at Edgbaston... he was just the man for the hour. I love Akram to no ends and if you consider him an all-rounder, he's in there. Dev may be overrated or underrated... I haven't decided. Getting that many sub-continent wickets as a seamer is impressive. Tough to guage Proctor since he was there in SA's finest period... but his all-round contributions are clear. Benaud I had no idea was that great until I read some stuff on him recently... not just cricket's greatest commentator. And who doesn't love Tony Greig - England's greatest sledger. Saying the West Indies would grovell, or mocking Hookes at back pad, or roughing up Dennis Lillee by signalling four everytime he hit a four off Lillee... great character. Just as great when he riles Bill Lawry up. His century against Australia in the 74/75 Ashes is just hilarious to see how mad he made the bowlers. Great character.
 

Francis

State Vice-Captain
Had a bowling average around 32 - not too bad. Had a batting average over 40.

Saved England in the West Indies, during one of Mike Dennes' first series as captain. By his own admission, the West Indies were the better team. He took about 13 wicket in that test match after Boycott gave him some runs to bowl at. In the batting department he was underrated. 8 centuries against high class bowling. His two best were:

One against Australia against Lillee and Thompson on a wicket that suited Lillee and Thompson. Another completely contrasting one in India, where he showed great patience against guys like Bishan Bedi, and took nearly 7 hours to get a century. Great patience.

Also finding a 10th all-rounder became quite hard...
 

C_C

International Captain
Ten best allrounders for me ( ranked) :

1. Gary Sobers
2. Imran Khan
3. Keith Miller
4. Kapil Dev
5. Ian Botham
6. Vinoo Mankad
7. Jacques Kallis
8. Ritchie Benaud
9. Richard Hadlee
10. Mike Proctor
 

_Ed_

Request Your Custom Title Now!
marc71178 said:
If you're going to pick 10, then you have to scrape the barrel a little bit.
True...but I'd have the likes of Cairns and Flintoff ahead of Greig.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
You've gotta have Kallis in there, and I can't see how Akram was a better allrounder than Kapil Dev. A batting average of around 31 compared to 22.64. Huh?

Akram IMO was a bowler that could bat, whereas Kapil Dev was a genuine allrounder. Maybe not in the mould of Imran or Botham, but both aspects of his game were vital to his team's performance. Far more than Akram's batting was to Pakistan's.
 

Autobahn

State 12th Man
Tony Greig i think deserved the place because he also managed to captain england quite well for a good time, but then ended up stealing some of his players, so i dunno...
 

archie mac

International Coach
Here are 10 of the older ones:

Rhodes
Hirst
Jack Gregory
Noble
Giffen
Lockwood
Faulkner
Frank Foster
Mankad
Woolley
 

aussie

Hall of Fame Member
C_C said:
Ten best allrounders for me ( ranked) :

1. Gary Sobers
2. Imran Khan
3. Keith Miller
4. Kapil Dev
5. Ian Botham
6. Vinoo Mankad
7. Jacques Kallis
8. Ritchie Benaud
9. Richard Hadlee
10. Mike Proctor
i may have Hadlee ahead of Benaud but overall i agree with this list.
 

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
archie mac said:
Here are 10 of the older ones:

Rhodes
Hirst
Jack Gregory
Noble
Giffen
Lockwood
Faulkner
Frank Foster
Mankad
Woolley
BLASPHEMY !!

You forgot WG :-O
 

Francis

State Vice-Captain
You know, I forgot that guys like Gilchrist can be in the list.

Gilchrist > Greig

Oh and Cairnes batting average is a decent margin below Greig's. While his bowling is only slightly better. Freddie might make it one day, too early right now.

And I like Kallis... but he's not there for me right now.
 

shankar

International Debutant
Francis said:
You know, I forgot that guys like Gilchrist can be in the list.

Gilchrist > Greig
IMO Gilchrist belongs to a different class of all-rounders. It's unfair on the regular allrounders to be compared with Gilly cause they have had their performances in both bowling and batting quantified and have to perform upto a particular level in both the skills to be considered as good. Whereas Gilchrist has to merely be decent to good with the gloves because wicket-keeping cannot be quantified and compared across the board. So he needs to maintain his performances with the bat only.
 

Armadillo

State Vice-Captain
Wasim had the talent to be a batsman, but with his deteriorating eyesight did not fulfil his potential, still could hit 'em.
 

sirjeremy11

State Vice-Captain
My difficulty with the term "all rounder" is that you really want to have someone who is of more value to the team with the bat than the ball (ie, their batting average is higher than their bowling avg). Otherwise, to me, they are just a bowler who also bats (no matter how well they bat). Look at Wasim Akram, for instance, no question, one of the great bowlers, but not a great batting average, with just the odd good innings. I would really rather have someone like a Chris Cairns or an Andrew Flintoff in their as an all rounder. I would also class Imran and Sobers as the great all rounders.

One way to class all rounders is a positive difference between batting and bowling averages. Taking this into account, test records (sorry Proctor!) with people over 100 wickets and 1000 runs...

1. Jacques Kallis 25.6
2. Garfield Sobers 23.7
3. Imran Khan 14.9
4. Keith Miller 14.0
5. Shaun Pollock 9.4
6. Trevor Goddard 8.2
7. Tony Grieg 8.2
8. Monty Noble 5.2
9. Ian Botham 5.1
10. Richard Hadlee 4.9
11. Wilfred Rhodes 4.2
12. Chris Cairns 4.1
13. Alan Davidson 4.0
14. Kapil Dev 1.4
15. Andrew Flintoff 0.8

Note how low Flintoffs' rating is... I do expect that to change over time. You will also want to take into account things like did they lead the bowling attack? Did they bat in the top 6? etc etc, just to acknowledge what sort of influence they had on their team.

The best thing about this system is that batting and bowling conditions were similar over their period. ie. it's hard to compare Kallis batting avg with Wilfred Rhodes batting average because the pitches were more bowler friendly. But you can compare the difference in their average, as no matter what era they are in, it will show the value to their team in terms of do they score more runs on average than they take wickets/runs.
 

C_C

International Captain
One way to class all rounders is a positive difference between batting and bowling averages
By that criteria, Tendulkar is a better allrounder than Kapil and Botham...
 

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