Rank the 4 great all rounders of the 1980s from best to worst

[Sanz]

Botham,Kapil,Imran,Hadlee

 

[aussie]

Also, with regards to Waqar and come to that, peaks. I would have no objection someone claiming that Waqar was the greatest fast bowler of all time based on his achievements from 1990 - 1994 where he took over 200 wickets in less than 40 tests, and if that is where his career ended. That would be perfectly fine. After all, Barnes is rated on 27 tests, Grimmett on 37, and O'Reilly on 33 (?). 40 tests and/or 200 wickets is a good enough sample to count as a peak - or, for that matter, a career. At the same though, if longevity is a criteria then that is fair enough too as long as the criteria is clear and consistently held.

The difference between Waqar 40 test peak & O'Reilly/Grimmett/Bares. Is that given the relatively modest amount of tests & small amount of test nations in the post war era, they really didn't play that many test of time. Since 37 test in the 1930s is probably 70-75 test in this 90s or 2000s era TBF.

Waqar on the other hand like Beefy starting like a train & crashed (due to injuries etc). So IMO i've always rated them as great players individually based on their very fantastic peaks. But given they fell of so much when comparing them to other all-rounders or fast bowlers, they unfortunately cant be ranked as the greatest in their respective fields.

But an interesting question here would be. Is a player who started of like a train then crashed (Botham & Waqar). Better than a player who evolved from a worm to butterly/peaked late (Imran Khan, Steve Waugh)?

 

[Uppercut]

Botham is still one of the greatest players of all time, and going on past his prime doesn't alter what he achieved earlier (apart from statzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzwise).

Inclined to agree with LT here. Feels wrong to downgrade a chap's achievements because he played on after his peak. In Botham's case he was but a mere shadow (albeit a massively portly one) of his (slightly) leaner and younger self, but he was still be best all-rounder available. The search for the next Botham became a cliche in itself, in fact.

Yeah, but against that you're looking at the fact that he was, to some extent, responsible for his own deterioration as a player. It does a disservice to players like Imran and Hadlee in this comparison to deny them any credit for keeping themselves in shape for the length of their career.

I'm not ignoring his phenomenal peak either, I'm on the fence in this discussion. I simply have no idea what balance to strike.

 

[Sanz]

Captaincy is easy when you have a bowling attack at your disposal. Captaincy is damn tough when you're the only bowler of any standing your team has. Imran's performances in the battles with the WI were outstanding. Kapil was equally, if not more outstanding. He was the only one to not suffer a significant fall in performance when in the Lions' own den, where one doesn't have the home umpire advantage *cough*. As for Botham, WAG. Obviously decided it would be worth a chuckle to show up as a specialist fielder against the #1 team.

I am assuming you are making a case for Kapil as captain. Kapil was the Dumbest captain and there simply is no comparison with Imran.

If one ever needed a confirmation, please get a video of this match :-

2nd SF: India v England at Mumbai, Nov 5, 1987 | Cricket Scorecard | Cricinfo.com

 

[Sanz]

Yeah, but against that you're looking at the fact that he was, to some extent, responsible for his own deterioration as a player. It does a disservice to players like Imran and Hadlee in this comparison to deny them any credit for keeping themselves in shape for the length of their career.

I'm not ignoring his phenomenal peak either, I'm on the fence in this discussion. I simply have no idea what balance to strike.

Botham wasn't responsible for his deterioration, English team using him as an OX was the reason. Between 77 and 82 he was almost on the cricket field almost twice as much as any other player barring Kapil who had to go through the same thing for his team.

 

[Zinzan]

Yeah, but against that you're looking at the fact that he was, to some extent, responsible for his own deterioration as a player. It does a disservice to players like Imran and Hadlee in this comparison to deny them any credit for keeping themselves in shape for the length of their career.

I'm not ignoring his phenomenal peak either, I'm on the fence in this discussion. I simply have no idea what balance to strike.

Yup, as I've mentioned before, with player rankings/assessments it depends entire on how individuals balance the weightings between 'players at their peak' vs. 'whole career'.

Whilst I ranked Imran no.1 overall, It's neither surprising nor unreasonable that some suggest Beefy was 1st based on his peak. I still maintain Botham > Imran marginally at their respective peaks, but that's just me.

 

[JBH001]

The difference between Waqar 40 test peak & O'Reilly/Grimmett/Bares. Is that given the relatively modest amount of tests & small amount of test nations in the post war era, they really didn't play that many test of time. Since 37 test in the 1930s is probably 70-75 test in this 90s or 2000s era TBF.

Waqar on the other hand like Beefy starting like a train & crashed (due to injuries etc). So IMO i've always rated them as great players individually based on their very fantastic peaks. But given they fell of so much when comparing them to other all-rounders or fast bowlers, they unfortunately cant be ranked as the greatest in their respective fields.

But an interesting question here would be. Is a player who started of like a train then crashed (Botham & Waqar). Better than a player who evolved from a worm to butterly/peaked late (Imran Khan, Steve Waugh)?

With respect, Aussie, I know all that. My point was that Botham - or for that matter Waqar - had still played a sufficient number of tests and achieved enough to merit assessment. Its all well and good that O'Reilly played 30 or so tests in 10 years but that also has to be guaged against less wear and tear and easier opportunities to recuperate and recover. It is by no means a one way thing. Botham, after all, played close to 50 tests at his peak from 77 to the (serious) onset of his back injury in 1982. That is one hell of a lot of cricket. Should not that be taken into account if we are talking about longevity and player loads? And, as Sanz notes, Botham (along with Kapil) was the go to man with bat and ball for their respective teams during that perod and even for a considerable while after that.

As I said, I dont mind the criteria being used. It will always differ. But it needs to be clearly stated and consistently held. Neither do the achievements of great players have to be denigrated in order to make other great players look better. Jeez, the man (Botham, that is) scored 5000 runs, took 350 wickets, 100 catches, 14 centuries, 27 half centuries, a 100 and a 10 fer once, a 100 and a 5 fer 4 times, and a 50 and a 5 fer 8 times. That is simply astounding.

 

[bunny]

Why ?

Well you only allow to vote for the top guy and want us to rank the 4.

 

[silentstriker]

Botham is still one of the greatest players of all time, and going on past his prime doesn't alter what he achieved earlier (apart from statzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzwise).

Forget about stats - even if he had stopped at his peak, he would not be rated higher(or shouldn't). Because it's about longetivity as well. Whether he didn't play or played badly, the longetivity was not there and so Imran is rated higher for me.

 

[zaremba]

Agreed. A bit bothered by some of these posts against Beefy because they seem to denigrate the man and his achievements (pillock though he is). I have nothing against Imran, hell, I rate him above Beefy over the decade, but it seems to me that some of the pro Imran, pro Kapil, or pro Hadlee lobby feel it necessary to tear down Beefy to raise "their" man up. I dont think that necessary - nor is it particularly attractive.

Well let me make it clear, neither Hadlee nor Imran nor Kapil is "my" man. And I don't knock Beefy to raise the others up. I knock Beefy because he was so incredibly gifted in so many ways, and threw it all away. Which is not to suggest that he didn't hit some extraordinary heights. But we need to keep this in perspective, and not forget the quality of the players we're comparing him with. Imran, Hadlee and Kapil each have a strong claim to be the best player his country has ever produced, each has a claim to be better than Botham and, in the case of Imran and Hadlee (not so sure about Kapil), they made the most of what they had.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Forget about stats - even if he had stopped at his peak, he would not be rated higher(or shouldn't). Because it's about longetivity as well. Whether he didn't play or played badly, the longetivity was not there and so Imran is rated higher for me.

Imran Khan has nothing to do with it. My post was in response to the suggestion that Botham can't be talked about as a great cricketer, which is nonsense. It 's akin to going on a boxing forum and arguing that Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard weren't great boxers because they were still shuffling embarrassingly around the ring in their late 30's.

 

[Matt79]

The Ali analogy is a great one. Will steal it and trott it out in future arguments of this sort.

 

[Zinzan]

. Imran, Hadlee and Kapil each have a strong claim to be the best player his country has ever produced

In Hadlee's case, absolutely undisputed

 

[silentstriker]

Imran Khan has nothing to do with it. My post was in response to the suggestion that Botham can't be talked about as a great cricketer, which is nonsense. It 's akin to going on a boxing forum and arguing that Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard weren't great boxers because they were still shuffling embarrassingly around the ring in their late 30's.

But in cricket, longetivity does count when judging greatness. If Hussey never gets back to his previous heights, will he go down as a great? Certainly, he was almost Bradmanesque for a few years there.

 

[Sanz]

But in cricket, longetivity does count when judging greatness. If Hussey never gets back to his previous heights, will he go down as a great? Certainly, he was almost Bradmanesque for a few years there.

Longevity as in No. of years or No. of games played ?

Botham's longevity is in the fact that for 6 years he batted like a top order batsman and then bowled like the main strike bowler.

What he did in those 6 years is kind of unparallel in the history of cricket. Not to forget the fact that he did both with great distinction. If we were to select player of the year then, Botham would have been the player of the year for almost every year between 1977-82 and that was in era of Gavaskar, Imran, Kapil, HAdlee, Richards, Chappell and many other greats.

 

[JBH001]

Imran Khan has nothing to do with it. My post was in response to the suggestion that Botham can't be talked about as a great cricketer, which is nonsense. It 's akin to going on a boxing forum and arguing that Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard weren't great boxers because they were still shuffling embarrassingly around the ring in their late 30's.

This was my point too.

Sanz, always thought you rated Imran, and even Kapil, above Botham. Clearly I was mistaken.

 

[Smudge]

Allow me to essentially lift this summary of all-rounders from Richard Hadlee's 1989 book Rhythm and Swing. He rated all the main allrounders (and one or two more) across various categories. Here's how he rated them (bearing in mind all four of them were still playing at this stage):

Botham
Batting - 7
Bowling - 4 (ouch) - comments include "nothing like the bowler he was in the late 70s" and "as he became more overweight, he lost the bowling art and his achievements in the last few years have been singularly unimpressive.
Fielding - 7
Experience - 6 - comments "But, as Imran says of him, he doesn't use his accumulated experience to good effect"
Stamina - 8
Temperament - 7
Dedication - 4
Captaincy - 2
Total points - 45

Kapil Dev
Batting - 7
Bowling - 6.5
Fielding - 8
Stamina - 7
Experience - 8
Temperament - 5
Dedication - 8
Captaincy - 5
Total points - 54.5

Imran Khan
Batting - 7
Bowling - 8
Fielding - 5
Experience - 8
Stamina - 8
Temperament 8
Dedication - 7
Captaincy - 5 (although in the typical Hadlee manner, one of his complaints about Imran is "Created some strife when he closed Pakistan's innings in the Wellington test when I needed one more wicket to give me my 100th bag of five in an innings. Stopped me inching closer to 400, too")
Total points - 56

Clive Rice
Batting - 8.5
Bowling - 5 - comments "back and leg injuries restricted him and when he eventually came back to bowling, it was as a medium pacer although he couldn't be underestimated".
Experience - 5
Stamina - 9
Temperament - 6
Dedication - 8
Captaincy - 6
Total points - 53.5

Hadlee didn't rate himself (I mean, in this chapter), but he got the idea from a piece in the Sun newspaper, courtesy of Imran Khan who rated Hadlee at 50.5 and Botham at 48.
Imran's ratings of Hadlee were as follows:

Batting - 5
Bowling - 8.5
Fielding - 6
Experience - 7
Stamina - 8
Temperament - 8
Dedication - 8.

Just some food for thought - nothing more....

 

[Matt79]

So plenty of love between Beefy and Hadlee?

 

[thierry henry]

Imran Khan has nothing to do with it. My post was in response to the suggestion that Botham can't be talked about as a great cricketer, which is nonsense. It 's akin to going on a boxing forum and arguing that Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard weren't great boxers because they were still shuffling embarrassingly around the ring in their late 30's.

You could easily go on a boxing forum and argue that any boxer who continued to box for a lengthy period of time while he was pretty poor had therefore diminished the overall greatness of his career. It makes perfect sense.

Botham at his peak was certainly one of the great performers, but the question is whether he had a great CAREER.

A career encompasses both the highs and the lows. If you see the concept of greatness as simply being how good they were at their peak, then everyone is probably arguing about nothing. I think everyone can agree that peak Botham was as good as almost anyone who's ever played.

As for arguing Botham v Imran, I fail to see how Botham's peak so overshadows Imran's, when Imran spent the best part of a decade averaging 40-some with the bat and 17 with the ball. Or, to express that without statzzzzzzz, he batted like a genuine top-order bat while bowling like one of the best bowlers ever.

imo the most you could say is that peak Botham shades peak Imran slightly, but then most people are going to balance that by saying Imran had a more sustained peak and far fewer dud performances, and therefore Imran's career>Botham's career.

 

[thierry henry]

Botham's longevity is in the fact that for 6 years he batted like a top order batsman and then bowled like the main strike bowler.

What he did in those 6 years is kind of unparallel in the history of cricket.

jeez

If Imran didn't do this at his best then he must've been pretty bloody close