****OFFICIAL**** Imran Khan vs Botham Debate Thread

[SJS]

We have compared bowling batting and fielding of these players, now how about comparing them on the basis of leadership.I know that Imran,Kapil and Bothom led their teams, not certain about hadlee though, would be good to see how they fared as a leader.

I think thats easier and less controversial too

Imran was the best captain of the lot and Hadlee not really known being relatively untried.

Of the other two, I would say Kapil improved in the job and was always one of the boys. He had problems created for him by former captains and cricketing greats who tried to stir up the North versus West and South (taking in South to make a strnoger case) controversy throughout Kapil's captaincy innings.

I think Kapil was naive and his own performance matterd a lot to bring results during his leadership. He tended to rely on his North Zone team mates for 'commitment' (not without reason many say) and these less talented worthies (Mohinder always excepted) tried their best but they were not as good as those who came up in the cricketing nurseries of Bombay and Karnataka. They tried hard for their captain and that produced some results.

Botham was made captain the way Tendulkar was much later in the stupid idea that the best player in the side must be the best captain too. The results were equally disastrous for team and player in both cases. Worse for Botham than for Sachin and thats saying a lot.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Just wonder, SJS, why you cut off the batting at 80 tests?

 

[SJS]

I think it is a good time to chip in with an all-time all-rounders XI.

Mankad---------31
Rhodes----------31
Faulkner--------40
Kallis------------56
Sobers-----------57
Gilchrist +------48
Miller------------37
Botham----------33
Imran------------37
Kapil-------------31
Benaud *--------24
Total------------425

Okay lets look at it statistically before we get down to choosing a side.

I decided to first put a minimum selection criteria - batting average of 25 or above and bowling average under 40. Thuis weeded out from the list of players who have taken at least 50 wickets and scored at least 1000 runs only one really worthwhile player - Richie Benaud with a batting average of 24.5. We can visit him again if we need him

I still found many occasional bowlers qualifying. So I put criteria to include more 'serious' bowlers - minimum 1 wkt/test. With this out went Steve Waugh, Astle, Mudassar, Jayasuriya etc. My favourite to go aout at this stage and an underrated bowler was Hammond who went out only when I incresed the number of decimals after the 1 (per/wkt) with his 83 wickets in 85 test

In alphabetical order these read : -
Abdul Razzaq*
Armstrong, W W
Bailey, T E
Botham, I T
Cairns, C L
Dexter, E R
Durani, S A
Faulkner, G A
Flintoff, A*
Goddard, T L
Gomez, G E
Gregory, J M
Greig, A W
Hadlee, R J
Imran Khan
Kallis, J H*
Kapil Dev
Kelleway, C E
Klusener, L*
Mackay, K D
Mankad, M H
McMillan, B M
Miller, G
Miller, K R
Mushtaq Mohammad
Nadkarni, R G
Noble, M A
Phadkar, D G
Pollock, S M*
Prabhakar, M M
Reid, J R
Rhodes, W
Sobers, G S A
Tate, M W
Woolley, F E
Worrell, F M M

Some very impressive names here. Surely no one can disagree with an all rounders team coming from these with due regards to WG, Benaud, Hirst, FS Jackson and others.

- to be continued

 

[SJS]

Just wonder, SJS, why you cut off the batting at 80 tests?

It was a multiple of 5 and comparing Imran and Hadlee (who played around 85 tests) with Kapil and Botham (who played over 100) is a bit less controversial

 

[SJS]

I think it is a good time to chip in with an all-time all-rounders XI.

Mankad---------31
Rhodes----------31
Faulkner--------40
Kallis------------56
Sobers-----------57
Gilchrist +------48
Miller------------37
Botham----------33
Imran------------37
Kapil-------------31
Benaud *--------24
Total------------425

(....continued)

Now comes the more difficult part. How to decide which of these 36 do we select. One possibility is to give points for batting and bowling separately and then add the two up and select those who have the highest combined (bat+ball) points. I am afraid that has two problems.
1. It is a bit subjective to equate batting averages with bowling averages 50+ with low 20's. Try doing it for a range af batting averages from 25 to 58+ and you will see what I mean.

2. You may end up leaving some of the best bowlers out which surely isnt the intention if you want the BEST side and not a collection of best individuals.

So I prefer to chose from those eligible five best batsmen and five best bowlers and this is what I did.

Best bowlers in this list. . The top 10 with their wkts and avgs)are :-

Hadlee, R J.....431 at 22.3....(RAF)
Imran Khan.....362 ...22.81....(RAF)
Miller, K R .....170....22.98....(RAF)
Pollock, S M*..394....23.2.....(RAF)
Noble, M A.....121.....25.......(RAOS)
Tate, M W......155.....26.16...(RAMP)
Goddard, T L...123.....26.23...(LAMP)
Faulkner, .......82.......26.59....(RALS)
Rhodes, W......127.....26.97....(LAS)
Gomez, G E....58......27.41.....(RAMP)

Number 11 in that list is the much acclaimed Botham(383 at 28.4)
but at 12 is the much less acclaimed Bapu Nadkarni

There are three spinners in this list. Lets put all three in the first short list since they bowl three different types.

Among the fast bowlers, I would short list the top three unhesitatingly and then add the great Maurice Tate above Pollock and have Gerry Gomez as the only left arm new ball bowler.

So we now have a short list of bowlers : Imran, Headley, Miller, Tate, Gerry Gomez, Rhodes, Noble and Faulkner.

Lets attend to the batsmen.

(to be continued)

 

[Anil]

But in fact Botham was probably Englands second best batsman in the 1984 WI series, Botham also scored runs vs th likes of Imran, Hadlee, Lillee etc. It simply not true that Botham couldnt play fast bowling

"wasn't all that good" doesn't equate to "couldn't play"....and one decent series or a few good innings here and there doesn't change that....he was uncomfortable against quality pace, that's a fact....and i am not putting down botham here, i am a huge admirer....i just feel the khan was a far better bowler and then later in his career developed into a better batsman as well....

 

[SJS]

I think it is a good time to chip in with an all-time all-rounders XI.

(....continued)

Best batsmen in the list

Since some of the bowlers are already in the list, I decided to take top 15 just in case we become short of candidates. This gives us :-

Sobers......8032 57.78
Kallis........8033 55.78
Worrell......3860 49.49
Dexter.......4502 47.89
Faulkner....1754 40.79
Greig........3599 40.44
McMillan...1968 39.36
Mushtaq...3643 39.17
Armstrong. 2863 38.69
Imran.......3807 37.69
Kelleway..1422 37.42
Miller.......2958 36.98
Gregory...1146 36.97
Woolley..3283 36.08
Goddard..2516 34.47

Guess who is at 16 ? Botrham again !! With 5200 runs at 33.55 each

I also feel bad that the great Hammond with 83 wkts in 85 matches is out and Dexter with 66 in 62 is in. So much for stats as an objective criteria

Let me hasten to add that Dexter was no less exciting a batsman to watch than the great Viv Richards and I cant think of higher praise.

Okay. so lets first see if we have openers here. Worrell has opened 6 times in his 51 test matches and once carried his bat at Trent Bridge for 191 not out while Trueman, Statham and Laker bundled out the rest of the team not allowing any other batsman to reach fifty. I will keep him for the time being as one opener.

We already have Rhodes amongst the bowlers whose opening partnership average of 59.3!! with Jack Hobbs over 36 test innings is the third best partnership EVER in the history of the game (not including those who are yet to complete their careers).

Rhodes and Hobbs are also the only pair to have a triple century opening stand against Australia (323 at Melbourne in 1912 besides another of 221 in South Africa a couple of years earlier. I think we should agree to use Rhodes (from the bowlers' list as an opener)

At number three we put Dexter (I am really tempted to rmove the decimals and let Hammond qualify and put him where he so regally belongs) although Kallis could take that spot too. Anyway both of them make our shortlist.

Then we have the incomparable Sobers and Faulkner(included from the bowlers). I add Woolley to the list to bring another left hander. We already have a fine batsman in Noble from the bowlers short list. I will add Tony Greig whom you may love to hate but whose record begs a second look as does his fighting spirit on the field and Armstrong for so many reasons not least that we may have him leading the side

So we have a batsmen's short list of Worrell, Kallis, Dexter(Hammond), Grieg, Woolley and Armstrong AND SOBERS !!
Very good.
(to be continued)

 

[bagapath]

SJS! Before you name your team I want to tell you something I considered for my team. See if it adds a bit to yours. I think you should also set a minimum standard for number of centuries and number of 5-fers to be able to select a player as an all rounder. May be 3 centuries and 3 five wicket hauls?

 

[SJS]

I think it is a good time to chip in with an all-time all-rounders XI.

(...continued)

Wicket keeper batsman. Here comes the tough one.

I first short listed the keepers with a batting average above thirty. That gave
Walcott......3798runs at 56.69
Flower........4794 51.55
Gilchrist......5124 48.8
Sangakarra..4456 46.91
Ames.........2434 40.57
Stewart.......8463 39.55
Lindsay......1130 37.67
Knott..........4389 32.75
Parks.........1962 32.16
Dujon.........3322 31.94
Waite........2405 30.44

If we try to chose the best bat we have Walcott, Flower, Gilchrist, Sangakarra, Ames and Stewart.

Of these Walcott (it was a revelation for me) kept wickets for less than half of his 44 test matches. I think he kept for only the first 16 but I need to reconfirm. Surely that should rule him out as a serious wicket keeper though he was a truly awesome batsman.

Similarly Stewart. Often chosen alongwith another keeper. Surely reason enough to stop all arguments.

I think Flower, Gilchrist, Ames and Sangakarra are the serious contenders from these.

On pure keeping abilities from the others who qualified, Knott stands out alongwith Dujon Lindsay and Waite.

This is still too big a list and its a tough job. If I have to use my own view (purely subjective I agree) I wil chose Andy Flower if I need to bolster the batting and Knott if I think we dont need another top notch batsman.

Just to indulge me please let us shortlist these too.

(to be continued...)

 

[SJS]

Okay here are the 19 shortlisted players (Hammond sneaked in by yours truly) in the order of their batting ranking. There bowling rank is in brackets.

1. Hammond .....(15)
2. Sobers .........(13)
3. Kallis .............(9)
4. Flower......... (NA)
5. Worrell .........(16)
6. Gilchrist....... (NA)
7. Faulkner ........(6)
8. Dexter......... (14)
9. Greig ...........(10)
10. Armstrong....(11)

11. Imran...........(2)
12. Miller...........(3)
13. Woolley.......(12)
14. Knott...........(NA)
15. Gomez.........(8)
16. Noble .........(4)
17. Rhodes.......(7)
18. Hadlee........(1)
19. Tate............(5)

I think the first ten (eight if you exclude the keepers) are to be considered as batsmen and the last nine (again eight if you exclude the lone keeper) are better bowlers _ or should be. Which means that I will chose five batsmen from the first eight and those in the second eight whose bowling ranks are lower than even a single batsman in the top 8, would be automatically disqualified unless there were special circumstances.

This meant that all those amongst the bowlers with a bowling rank worse than Faulkener (ranked 6) would be disqualified. That gave automatic qualification to the top ranked five bowlers:-

Hadlee 1
Imran 2
Miller 3
Nobel 4
Tate 5

There is a preponderence of faster bowlers with only one spinner in the form of Monty Noble.

Lets leave that for the time being.

Now amongst the batsmen I disqualified Dexter due to a point raised by Bagapath - he has not a single five for. Of the balance seven batsmen, I dropped Armstrong too. Then I discovered that we were without a second opener. So I decided to bring back Rhodes amongst the bowlers.

For keeper my choice for batsman keeper is Flower and for Keeper batsman is knott.

I now have six batsmen (Worrell, Hammond, Kallis, Faulkner, and six bowlers in possible batting order and two keepers (if so many are allowed to bat)

1. Worrell (LAS - LAMP)
2. Rhodes (LAS)
3. Hammond (RAMP)
4. Kallis (RAMP)
5. Faulkner (RALS)
6. Sobers (LAET)
7. Flower (Keeper)
8. Grieg (RAMP)
9. Miller (RAF)
10. Nobel (RAOS)
11. Imran (RAF)
12. Hadlee (RAF)
13. Knott (keeper)
14. Tate. (RAMP)

Okay I have done enough. Now its upto you guys. You have to vote on who should be dropped from each of these groups and why).

You cant drop more than one from each group.

The groups are :

Batting Allrounders :-
1. Worrell (LAS - LAMP)
2. Hammond (RAMP)
3. Kallis (RAMP)
4. Faulkner (RALS)
5. Sobers (LAET)
6. Grieg (RAMP)

Bowling Allrounders
1. Miller (RAF)
2. Nobel (RAOS)
3. Imran (RAF)
4. Hadlee (RAF)
5. Tate. (RAMP)
6. Rhodes (LAS)

Keepers
1. Flower
2, Knott

I will also tell my choice but not yet

 

[Swervy]

"wasn't all that good" doesn't equate to "couldn't play"....and one decent series or a few good innings here and there doesn't change that....he was uncomfortable against quality pace, that's a fact....and i am not putting down botham here, i am a huge admirer....i just feel the khan was a far better bowler and then later in his career developed into a better batsman as well....

did you actually watch him play..or are you just gleening those 'facts' from looking at some averages.

 

[Goughy]

(....continued)
So we now have a short list of bowlers : Imran, Headley, Miller, Tate, Gerry Gomez, Rhodes, Noble and Faulkner.

(to be continued)

From post #65.

Just to avoid confusion, surely that should be 'Hadlee' not 'Headley'?

 

[bagapath]

sjs! you've done an awesome job of breaking down the whole selection process.

am only worried that you dont have the second specialist opener in your team. and you dont have a wicket keeper who averaged 4 dismissals per test. and most importantly you dont have botham! 14 hundreds, 27 fivefers.

should you have also considered, apart from other min requirements, the difference between batt average and bowling average to define an all-rounder? anyway, i'll stick to my initial selection and see what others come up with.

 

[SJS]

From post #65.

Just to avoid confusion, surely that should be 'Hadlee' not 'Headley'?

Sure. Its an error.

 

[marc71178]

Greig, Tate and Flower for me - with a batting line up this strong, play the gloveman.

 

[Goughy]

The groups are :

Batting Allrounders :-
1. Worrell (LAS - LAMP)
2. Hammond (RAMP)
3. Kallis (RAMP)
4. Faulkner (RALS)
5. Sobers (LAET)
6. Grieg (RAMP)

Bowling Allrounders
1. Miller (RAF)
2. Nobel (RAOS)
3. Imran (RAF)
4. Hadlee (RAF)
5. Tate. (RAMP)
6. Rhodes (LAS)

Keepers
1. Flower
2, Knott

I will also tell my choice but not yet

I would drop Worrell (just because of Greigs big 10fer bowling spin in WI), Rhodes and Knott.

This is good stuff. I just working on my own methodology for deciding this which I will post.

Interested to see how close our teams and any others look.

 

[SJS]

sjs! you've done an awesome job of breaking down the whole selection process.

am only worried that you dont have the second specialist opener in your team. and you dont have a wicket keeper who averaged 4 dismissals per test. and most importantly you dont have botham! 14 hundreds, 27 fivefers.

should you have also considered, apart from other min requirements, the difference between batt average and bowling average to define an all-rounder? anyway, i'll stick to my initial selection and see what others come up with.

Oh we can get into that discussion but it doesnt matter really. For me the major changes I would make in your team are
1. I would not take Gilchrist. I am sorry but I do not have as great an opinion of him as most people as a wicket keeper. My first preference would be to go for a better wicket keeper and Knott is in a different league compared to Gilchrist. Anyone who has seen Knott will tell you that and not a mug with the bat. Keepers victims is one of the most misleading stats in cricket, believe me. And I consider Flower a better test batsman than Gilchrist.

2. I have a great regard for Benaud as an all rounder but with Faulkner in your team who was a really awesome leg spinner by most accounts, I would go for a variety in spin in the form of off spinner Monty Noble who was also a better bat than Benaud.

3. I would find it difficult to accomodate Kapil, my Indian sentiments and very soft feelings for Kapil not withstanding. For someone who is going to bat that low in the order, I would take Hadlee.

As far as Botham is concerned, I think I have in the earlier discussion made it very clear that I rate him very high indeed as an all rounder but that is in normal conditions meaning just one all rounder in a team (on rare occasions two) for better balance. But when we are having a whole team of world class all rounders, I think the team would be strengthened by looking for specialists within the all rounders. No point in having eleven very good batsmen and ten very good bowlers when you could change it a bit and have three great batsmen and three great bowlers to replace six 'balanced' all rounders (for want of a better word.

 

[SJS]

I would drop Worrell (just because of Greigs big 10fer bowling spin in WI), Rhodes and Knott.

Who would open the batting ?

 

[SJS]

By the way, I would drop Greig (I am amzed at how good his stats are), Tate (a very difficult one but we have Hadlee) and Flower (agree with Marc's logic).

Oh. I just realised all three are the same as marc.

 

[Goughy]

My Allround XI

For a start I will use SJS's initial criteria to break down the applicants. As I think it is a very good starting point.

I decided to first put a minimum selection criteria - batting average of 25 or above and bowling average under 40. Thuis weeded out from the list of players who have taken at least 50 wickets and scored at least 1000 runs only one really worthwhile player - Richie Benaud with a batting average of 24.5. We can visit him again if we need him

I still found many occasional bowlers qualifying. So I put criteria to include more 'serious' bowlers - minimum 1 wkt/test. With this out went Steve Waugh, Astle, Mudassar, Jayasuriya etc. My favourite to go aout at this stage and an underrated bowler was Hammond who went out only when I incresed the number of decimals after the 1 (per/wkt) with his 83 wickets in 85 test

In alphabetical order these read : -
Abdul Razzaq*
Armstrong, W W
Bailey, T E
Botham, I T
Cairns, C L
Dexter, E R
Durani, S A
Faulkner, G A
Flintoff, A*
Goddard, T L
Gomez, G E
Gregory, J M
Greig, A W
Hadlee, R J
Imran Khan
Kallis, J H*
Kapil Dev
Kelleway, C E
Klusener, L*
Mackay, K D
Mankad, M H
McMillan, B M
Miller, G
Miller, K R
Mushtaq Mohammad
Nadkarni, R G
Noble, M A
Phadkar, D G
Pollock, S M*
Prabhakar, M M
Reid, J R
Rhodes, W
Sobers, G S A
Tate, M W
Woolley, F E
Worrell, F M MI

Now, I want players to prove they are allrounders by making big contributions with both bat and ball in tests.

I am applying a scientific rule of thumb 'If an experiment is not repeatable then it is not valid'. This means that all players with 1 or less 100s or 5wkt innings are excluded.

The below list have multiple 100s and 5wkt innings.

Armstrong, W W
Botham, I T
Cairns, C L
Faulkner, G A
Flintoff, A*
Gregory, J M
Greig, A W
Hadlee, R J
Imran Khan
Kallis, J H*
Kapil Dev
Mankad, M H
Miller, K R
Mushtaq Mohammad
Phadkar, D G
Pollock, S M*
Rhodes, W
Sobers, G S A
Woolley, F E
Worrell, F M MI

A team of 10 will be chosen from this list.

TO BE CONTINUED