Surprisingly, 2 of the greatest 5 ever WC allrounders are S.Waugh and Yuvraj Singh

[mr_mister]

I felt like looking up who were the best all-rounders at the true test of ODI cricket ability, world cups.


Lance Klusener averaging 124 with bat and 22 with ball clearly has to be the number 1 - that batting average is ridiculous and blows all discussion out of the water. There is something to be said for the fact most of his impressive achievements came in one tournament, but he at least participated in 2 and managed to maintain those ridiculous career figures despite an underwhelming 2003 performance.

Then we have:

Steve Waugh's world cup record of 978 runs @ 48 and 27 wickets @ 30

to go with

Yuvraj Singh's 738 runs @ 52 and 20 wickets @ 23

they seem to be a clear class above nearly all the famous modern day white ball all-rounders. To look at some of the biggest names and see the inferior returns is quite interesting.


Kallis averaged 45 and 43
Pollock 17 and 31
Jayasuriya 34 and 39
Kapil 37 and 31
Botham 18 and 25
Hadlee 16 and 19
Shakib 45 and 35
Watson 53 and 62
Flintoff 18 and 23



Imran Khan produced returns of 35 and 19, which certainly puts him in the top 5 - though it's hard to know if this is better than Waugh/Yuvraj or not.


Anyway knowing me I'm sure I've missed someone really obvious,but I'd bet my bottom dollar 4 of the 5 best ever WC allrounders, based on stats, have to be Imran, Zulu, Yuvraj and Tugga. It's a pretty random assortment of names

 

[cnerd123]

Yuvraj isn't a surprise. Was instrumental in the 2011 WC win for India.

Waugh was a solid AR in his early days too

Shakib with 45 and 35 WAG. That bowling average isn't bad at all given the dross around him. Worth checking out his econ rate. Often just got seen off while the other bowlers got rekt

 

[mr_mister]

Yeah I originally had the thread in mind just surrounding Steve Waugh, realised Yuvraj's stats were actually better then had to compromise a bit.

But I feel with Steve Waugh it is actually quite surprising his stats are as good as they are. Like, better than all the other big names in the OP type good.


In both the '87 and '92 world cups he finished in the top 20 for most wickets (and in '87 actually the top 10)

Then in '96 and '99 he finished in the top 20 for most runs (and in '99 finished 2nd only behind Dravid)

It's like his career was neatly split into 2

 

[mr_mister]

To really break it down, from the 87-99 period, across the 4 cups he participated in, he finishes 7th on the wickets aggregate and 3rd on the runs aggregate. I know this is super bias/weighted toward the start and end of his own career, but its interesting

 

[TheJediBrah]

Yuvraj isn't a surprise. Was instrumental in the 2011 WC win for India.

I think the point is that it's a surprise that Yuvraj, as a player, is statistically a better WC all rounder than Kallis, Pollock, Kapil, Botham, Shakib, Flintoff, Watson etc.

not that it's surprising that his stats are good based on his performance

 

[mr_mister]

yeah but to be fair to ***** Yuvraj had a Klusener like 2011 performance so it shouldn't be that surprising to people that his WC all-round stats are really really good.

With Waugh they were random good performances scattered across 4 cups without one crazy good performance at one so it could be a little stealthy that his overall record is so solid

 

[ankitj]

Lance Klusener averaging 124 with bat shows how ridiculous it is generally to rate players on their world cup record. #samplesizelol

 

[mr_mister]

well if you want to make some kind of criteria for 3 cups minimum(which everyone in the OP fits except for Zulu) that only elevates Waugh's position

And I think once you get to 20 matches or so it becomes a legitimate tool for analysing players, and again 20 matches is met by (I think) every single player in the OP except Zulu

 

[TheJediBrah]

Lance Klusener averaging 124 with bat shows how ridiculous it is generally to rate players on their world cup record. #samplesizelol

It's not quite that simple though. Yes it's a small sample, but World Cup cricket is also much higher stakes and higher pressure than the vast majority of regular ODIs. Over the last decade especially it's been surprisingly rare for a major country to even pick a full strength team unless it's a World Cup.

I'm not trying to go full Burgey but there is some legitimacy in rating a player because they performed in World Cups, and not rating a player who has better overall stats but sucked in World Cups.

 

[ankitj]

It's not quite that simple though. Yes it's a small sample, but World Cup cricket is also much higher stakes and higher pressure than the vast majority of regular ODIs. Over the last decade especially it's been surprisingly rare for a major country to even pick a full strength team unless it's a World Cup.

I'm not trying to go full Burgey but there is some legitimacy in rating a player because they performed in World Cups, and not rating a player who has better overall stats but sucked in World Cups.

All you say is true. Weighting world cup records more will make sense purely because you are more likely to face full strength teams (more true in previous decade than before), not so much because #pressure; I have always held pressure, if on both sides, cancels out. But using only world cups doesn't make sense because #samplesizelol and small window where ups and downs of forms come into play much more than they do over entire careers or even in slices such as record in country X.

 

[mr_mister]

Also Klusener's batting in 1999 was really something else never seen before or since

He won 4 MOTM awards and would have been very close to a 5th had Donald not got run out(Though maybe Warne still would have got it)

but yeah, he seemed pretty much invincible in nearly every innings. Like Ben Stokes at Headingley and the WC Final except across a whole tournament in super high pressure situations

He deserves to be remembered as the best ever MOTS out of all the MOTS from every tournament. Never has someone deserved the title more

 

[ankitj]

Speaking of MOTS, I think they have all earned it. Tendulkar in 03, McGrath in 07, Yuvraj in 11, Starc in 15 etc. Jayasuriya in 96 was lame thoguh, it should have been De Silva.

 

[TheJediBrah]

All you say is true. Weighting world cup records more will make sense purely because you are more likely to face full strength teams (more true in previous decade than before), not so much because #pressure; I have always held pressure, if on both sides, cancels out. But using only world cups doesn't make sense because #samplesizelol and small window where ups and downs of forms come into play much more than they do over entire careers or even in slices such as record in country X.

of course but no one is genuinely using only World Cups to rate people

 

[mr_mister]

Yeah Jayasuriya/Kalu's reputation from that cup is a bit undeserved. They went missing in the SF and F, they didn't even do that much in the group stage (as SL got two walkover victories against WI and Australia). Basically blasted Kenya and blasted the hopeless England in the QF

 

[TheJediBrah]

Kalu is pretty overrated in general. He averaged 20. Did he even strike better than 100? Most wicket-keepers / half-decent bowling allrounders could have done what he did.

edit: and yes I get that he was swept along a bit by team and circumstances

 

[mr_mister]

He was one of the most hit and miss players ever, but he was very effective once he got going and his average undersells him a bit. He could get out straight away but his job as an opener was to blast runs, don't think his coach or captain cared if he survived 15 overs or not

Take his ODI record in Australia, from 2 of those annual tri series he featured in, from 95/96 and 98/99

22 innings with an average of 27... however:

7 fifties and 9 single digit scores.

Sums up him a bit.

 

[mr_mister]

Also as an actual opener he hit 22 fifties and 2 tons from 112 matches there - that's a pretty decent ratio/return. Still averaged 26 though so there were clearly a bunch of single figure scores there too.

But the career average makes him look crapper than he was, he played over 50 innings down at 6/7 and averaged like 15 there, probably basically just came in and slogged from ball one a lot

 

[Burgey]

It's not quite that simple though. Yes it's a small sample, but World Cup cricket is also much higher stakes and higher pressure than the vast majority of regular ODIs. Over the last decade especially it's been surprisingly rare for a major country to even pick a full strength team unless it's a World Cup.

I'm not trying to go full Burgey but there is some legitimacy in rating a player because they performed in World Cups, and not rating a player who has better overall stats but sucked in World Cups.

You aren't smart enough to go full Burgey. But its good to see you're coming around to the obvious truth re primacy of WC performances, and especially finals.

 

[stephen]

Symonds worth a shout too - bowling average 100, 5 wickets @50. Bowling isn't great but the gap between batting and bowling is still +50.

 

[mr_mister]

seems like he barely even bowled though if he took 5 wickets, that was probably what 6-7 innings where he bowled?