Allrounders 'unsustainable' in modern game

[Flem274*]

New Zealand players aren't picked to try fill up the allrounder role, we have just had a constant stream of players like Cairns and Oram who make the rather weak New Zealand team by being better than anyone else in the country in either field. They have hardly disgraced us.

Cairns, Oram and Vettori are definitely not B&P players, neither is Flintoff.

In fact three of the above four (Vettori is arguable) would be happily snapped up by any top 8 nation for their team.

 

[SJS]

Cairns, Oram and Vettori are definitely not B&P players, neither is Flintoff.

In fact three of the above four (Vettori is arguable) would be happily snapped up by any top 8 nation for their team.

Did I name any players ? Must get my reading glasses

Oh yes I named Ronnie Irani. Great player.

 

[Smudge]

Yeah, was about to say, SJS, I was guessing you were referring to the likes of:

Justin Vaughan
Rod Latham
Glen Sulzberger
Brendon Dire-manti
and so on, rather than Cairns, Oram et al.

 

[Flem274*]

Did I name any players ? Must get my reading glasses

Oh yes I named Ronnie Irani. Great player.

Just seemed like you were incrimminating every allrounder who played for the two countries in the past few tears. Sorry for the misinterpretation.

Heh, poor Diremanti, gets his name on the list ahead of other beauties that snuck away from it (Hitchcock, etc) and he only played one rain shortened game (and looked horrible).

Was the randomest pick though, he's even a B&P player by CD bowling standards, and we have some rather interesting bowlers.

 

[TT Boy]

Is that the elbow injury he had in 2005 when he was down here in Australia?

Forgot about that one. Good point.

Yeah that's the one. Had an op in early 06 and that kept him out of the summer tour to Sri Lanka, comeback in time for the Champions Trophy later that year.

 

[Uppercut]

If we are willing to understand the difference between an all rounder (Sobers, Miller, Faulkner, Botham, Imran, etc) and a "bits and pieces" player (Ronnie Irani and his superiors) that has been masquerading as an all rounder in some countries thanks to the proliferation of the limited overs format, and substitute the latter description in the thread-title, the motion is carried unopposed.

An all rounder is not produced by ignoring specialistaion and selecting a player in a team who is neither good enough to be selected as a batsman nor good enough to be selected as bowler. An all rounder is at least always good enough as a specialist in one area and often enough performs as well as a specialist in the other.

The so called all rounders that England and New Zealand, in particular, have produced by the dozens in the last decade or more are a joke compared to the rare group of talented cricketers who belong to this special club. To first include these apologies for all rounders in that list and then run down the place of an all rounder in the scheme of things is to completely turn logic on its head.

I'll take up the argument and say a player who may not be first-choice for either his batting or his bowling can still justify a place in the side. If he makes a good contribution with the ball once every six matches and a good contribution with the bat every six matches he's doing the team more good than a pure batsman who contributes once every four matches.

I don't agree with the "must justify place on one discipline" theory, nor with the "ignore lower-order batting when choosing bowlers" theory. That's too idealistic, i think. Selectors will often take such things into account to much too great an extent, but they shouldn't be ignored.

 

[GIMH]

Yeah, the idealistic approach that the best team consists of the six best batsmen, the best glovesman and the four best bowlers is unlikely to work. If you are lucky then it can (perhaps see Gilchrist-Warne era Australia?), but a great example of it not being the case but a side being successful in recent times is of course the England side of 04/05. Flintoff wasn't one of the best six batsmen, Geraint Jones wasn't the best glovesman and Giles was not one of the best four bowlers but it worked. Though many did want to improve on that side, dropping Flintoff down to seven, dropping Giles & Jones, batting Read at 8. That side would have perhaps met the 6-1-4 criteria, but it was never picked as far as I can tell, and so we'll never know

 

[aussie]

Dont agree with Oram totally. The amount of cricket is definately wayyyy too much for all-rounder & injuries will become more prevalent.

But guys like him, Freddie & Watson for example are so injury proned, even if the international schedule was a lighter. They would still be getting injured.

 

[SJS]

I'll take up the argument and say a player who may not be first-choice for either his batting or his bowling can still justify a place in the side. If he makes a good contribution with the ball once every six matches and a good contribution with the bat every six matches he's doing the team more good than a pure batsman who contributes once every four matches.

I don't agree with the "must justify place on one discipline" theory, nor with the "ignore lower-order batting when choosing bowlers" theory. That's too idealistic, i think. Selectors will often take such things into account to much too great an extent, but they shouldn't be ignored.

You have to take the spirit of what I am trying to say rather than go into the semantics.

Imran in his early career was good enough to play for Pakistan as a bowler while in the latter part he could be kept in the side mainly because of his batting. In the two separate phases his batting in the first phase and his bowling in the second would have been the bonus which put him for a large part of his career into the all rounder category.

Its basically a question of having a batsman who is amongst those you would consider for the side who can also bowl well at that level or vice-versa.

Imran (for his bowling), Miller (for bowling), Kapil (for bowling), Sobers (for batting), Hadlee (for bowling), Kallis (for batting) and Flintoff again for bowling would have been candidates for their country sides even without the other disciplines, thats why these are the people who rank higher when we talk of the top all rounders.

Those who are not good enough in either discipline but will get into the side because they are above average in both are the next rung and then whether they are to be called great allrounders, good all rounders, good enough all rounders, bits and pieces players whatever is a matter of personal opinion and semantics.

The point I was making was that the real top all rounders of the type I have named above will generally be good enough for the side for one discipline. Mind you I did not say for both as many people used to say. One has heard of a definition of an all rounder as someone who is good enough to play as both a batsman or a bowler. I think THAT is being idealistic and a bit unrealistic.

But to have as all rounder someone who is not good enough to be in the side for either discipline is compromising the side's overall quality which, at least in the longer version of the game is not a great idea. In the shorter version, it is relatively less harmful because an individual (particularly the bowler) is limited in how much he can contribute. The batsman, if batting lower down also gets limited opportunity and thus it has wider acceptance.

 

[Evermind]

Kallis (for batting)

I think Kallis would make it for his bowling alone as well.

 

[zaremba]

An all rounder is not produced by ignoring specialistaion and selecting a player in a team who is neither good enough to be selected as a batsman nor good enough to be selected as bowler. An all rounder is at least always good enough as a specialist in one area and often enough performs as well as a specialist in the other.

But then we come back to the interesting case of Trevor Bailey. As Fred F has pointed out, he probably wouldn't have made the team on the strength of his bowling alone, given the strength in depth in bowling enjoyed by England in the 1950s. And he certainly wouldn't have made the team on the strength of his batting alone. But you'd call him an all-rounder - and a valuable one at that - surely?

 

[BoyBrumby]

Fair point, but for me the Barnacle's bowling was certainly test class (averages less per wicket than any of the current mob and played in another bat-dominated era), even if there may have been slightly more able bowlers available at the time, so I don't see anything wrong in selecting him because he can hold a bat too as a tie-breaker.

EDIT: Actually Sid may average less, but point stands.

 

[Richard]

Un-called for...but entirely true.

Actually cluelessly wrong, same way anyone who agreed with it would be.

 

[Richard]

Well it's not exactly unlike him to say stuff like that

It's relatively unlike him to go so completely OTT about something which is fairly obviously a typo TBH.

 

[Richard]

If we are willing to understand the difference between an all rounder (Sobers, Miller, Faulkner, Botham, Imran, etc) and a "bits and pieces" player (Ronnie Irani and his superiors) that has been masquerading as an all rounder in some countries thanks to the proliferation of the limited overs format, and substitute the latter description in the thread-title, the motion is carried unopposed.

An all rounder is not produced by ignoring specialistaion and selecting a player in a team who is neither good enough to be selected as a batsman nor good enough to be selected as bowler. An all rounder is at least always good enough as a specialist in one area and often enough performs as well as a specialist in the other.

The so called all rounders that England and New Zealand, in particular, have produced by the dozens in the last decade or more are a joke compared to the rare group of talented cricketers who belong to this special club. To first include these apologies for all rounders in that list and then run down the place of an all rounder in the scheme of things is to completely turn logic on its head.

As I've said in another thread, I think the term "all-rounder" is sometimes a little too jealously protected. A bits-and-pieces player is an all-rounder - he's just a not-very-good one. You get poor all-rounders, same way you get poor batsmen and poor bowlers and poor wicketkeeper-batsmen.

All you need to do to be an all-rounder is to be roughly equal in batting and bowling calibre. You don't need to be good enough to get into a Test team as batsman or bowler.

 

[andyc]

All you need to do to be an all-rounder is to be roughly equal in batting and bowling calibre. You don't need to be good enough to get into a Test team as batsman or bowler.

Would personally say that a better definition is somewhere along the lines of simply being able to contribute to the game with both bat and ball. Someone like Kallis is clearly a much better batsman than a bowler, but he's still an all-rounder. Agree with the last sentence though.

 

[SJS]

As I've said in another thread, I think the term "all-rounder" is sometimes a little too jealously protected. A bits-and-pieces player is an all-rounder - he's just a not-very-good one. You get poor all-rounders, same way you get poor batsmen and poor bowlers and poor wicketkeeper-batsmen.

All you need to do to be an all-rounder is to be roughly equal in batting and bowling calibre. You don't need to be good enough to get into a Test team as batsman or bowler.

What I said has to be seen in the context of this thread. A 'bits and pieces' player is what has become (or rather have always been) 'unsustainable' not a 'genuine' all rounder irrespective of what nuance-laden definition one wants to attach to that latter term.

 

[Richard]

Would personally say that a better definition is somewhere along the lines of simply being able to contribute to the game with both bat and ball. Someone like Kallis is clearly a much better batsman than a bowler, but he's still an all-rounder. Agree with the last sentence though.

There's no way I'd define Kallis as anything other than a batting-all-rounder. Totally different to someone like Oram, who's a genuine all-rounder. Ditto Flintoff is clearly a bowling-all-rounder. This is again defined to the likes of Graeme Swann or Jerome Taylor, who are bowlers who bat a bit.

By the definition you offer, Andrew Symonds is an all-rounder in ODIs, and as I said to Fuller a few years back, such a notion is, to me, utterly ludicrous. Symonds is a batsman who bowls a bit - his batting is eons better than his bowling.

 

[Richard]

What I said has to be seen in the context of this thread. A 'bits and pieces' player is what has become 'unsustainable' not a 'genuine' all rounder irrespective of what nuance-laden definition one wants to attach to that latter term.

TBH, I'd argue that bits-and-pieces players were always unsustainable. They're players who might make some good short-term contributions - take for example Matthew Fleming in England's ODI side - but are never, ever going to be long-term options. I'd say this has echoed down the ages.

The reason the notion of all-rounders (and genuine class all-rounders rather than poor ones) becoming unsustainable at the current time is because of the intensity and regularity of international and some domestic (read: IPL) cricket. Nothing to do with the quality of player.

 

[Uppercut]

Dunno, there are some useful bits-and-pieces ODI players around. Take Albie Morkel for instance, purely a hitter and probably not in the top seven batsmen in the country nor one of SA's best bowlers. Or Dimi Mascarenhas, very useful in the lower order and an extremely tricky bowler if the ball is doing anything, but probably not first-choice in either batting or bowling.

Having Kallis or Flintoff gives these teams the freedom to pick one such player to fulfil such a role, and they both make the difference in a fair few games I'd say.