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Greatest allrounder

  • Thread starter Thread starter Slax
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Who is the greatest allrounder

  • Jacques Kallis

    Votes: 34 38.6%

  • Garry Sobers

    Votes: 37 42.0%

  • Imran Khan

    Votes: 6 6.8%

  • Kapil Dev

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Richard Hadlee

    Votes: 3 3.4%

  • Ian Botham

    Votes: 3 3.4%

  • Keith Miller

    Votes: 3 3.4%

  • Shane Watson

    Votes: 2 2.3%
  • Total voters
    88

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Does anyone know who the Channel 9 viewers chose as the best all rounder? They were choosing from Sobers, Kallis, Botham, Imran and Miller.

It was interesting to watch this discussion to see whether Ian Chappell would give Ian Botham any credit as a player. In the end, he did include him in his top 5.
 
free at last said:
The true great all-rounders IMO have to average better than 30 with the bat and under 30 with the ball.

I'd pick Sir Ian Botham.
Click to expand...

If we are using your logic of averages, then...

Imran Khan - 37.7 with the bat, 22.8 with the ball
Ian Botham - 33.5 with the bat, 28.4 with the ball

Why would you pick Botham ahead of Khan? Just out of interest. :)
 
In Botham's favor is that he was a devastating batsmen capable of changing games. Take the 1981 Ashes series. In all he made 8 more tons than Imran in just 14 more tests. At the beginning of his career Botham was great. First 50 tests batting avg of about 35 (9tons) and bowling avg 22 (19 5w). So he was a real match winner. Credit has been give here to Imran for the second half of his career, but not really Ian's first half.
 

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thorne89 said:
If we are using your logic of averages, then...

Imran Khan - 37.7 with the bat, 22.8 with the ball
Ian Botham - 33.5 with the bat, 28.4 with the ball

Why would you pick Botham ahead of Khan? Just out of interest. :)
Click to expand...

Probably because of the way botham went about it,just so explosive.
Be interesting to see how many times Imran played against the West Indies compared to Botham.
 
Dixie Flatline said:
Channel 9 (Nicholas, Barry Richards (IIRC) and Chappelli) discussed this at tea yesterday. Both Richards and Chappelli named Sir Garfield Sobers as their no. 1 all-rounder of all time, very emphatically.

Chappell said that as a boy, his dad used to take him to Adelaide Oval and his dad told Chappell (presumably Greg and Trevor as well) to watch how Miller played.

.
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Trevor must of been off in the toilet or playing out the back

Id vote sobers based on reading, which of course is relying on others opinions.

Kallis is great, but as good a bowler as he is he is still only a good bowler, quantity of wickets comes from a lot of tests. Not having a go, just using it to split two greats of the game
 
free at last said:
Probably because of the way botham went about it,just so explosive.
Be interesting to see how many times Imran played against the West Indies compared to Botham.
Click to expand...

Imran Khan was superior against the West Indies. His batting was sub-par for an allrounder but his bowling was still elite. Botham was found out bigtime with the bat and ball.

Imran's stats v Botham's stats against the West Indies. Khan struggled with the bat in the West Indies; that's the only knock on him.

IMO Botham is hugely overrated. He's an allround flat track bully in many respects.
 
I think Batting strike rates should be considered. Kallis is a very careful batsman and he owes a lot of his average to that, I think his SR is around 40, which is pretty low.
 
We had a discussion on this topic a few months ago. I posted a file I had created assessing the relative merits of each of the usual candidates. Here it is again. I would love to hear people's opinions on it.

The file is in pdf format.
 

Attachments

Kallis is one of the rare all-rounders whose batting average is more than 20 ahead of his bowling average. I think it might be him and sobers.
 

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Hodgepodge said:
Statistically Sobers should be considered ahead of Kallis since he has almost as many wickets in about half the tests!
Click to expand...

Fair call, and nearly everyone I speak to that have seen both play would agree that Sobers was better - usually due to his quicker scoring and versatility as a bowler. Kallis' strike rate as a bowler is far better than Sobers' is though, with Kallis taking 45 more wickets despite having bowled over 2000 less deliveries.

Unfortunately I never got the chance to see Sobers so I would say that Kallis is the best I've seen.
 
Don't forget Sobers was one of the great fielders. Fact is, he wasn't good enough to hold his spot purely as a bowler - very few (if any) have reached that level. Imran probably reached those levels separately - as a bowler early in his career and as a batsman later. Miller ditto. Sobers had a phenomenal first-class bowling career - but it didn't quite carry over to test cricket. Interestingly, he was first picked as a bowler - batted no 8 or 9 in his test debut.

One of the problems with all-rounders is that sometimes selectors get so excited that they pick a player who is neither a Test-class bowler or bat, but a bit of both. The poms had plenty - Craig White, David Capel, Dominic Cork. This hardly ever works. Possibly Kenny Mackay for Australia made it work, but he was fortunate to play in a very defensive era, and he was a very defensive player - both batting and bowling. An all-rounder has to be a test-quality player at one skill - plus a bit of a bonus.

Watson is a classic case - nowhere near a test-class bowler (about Kallis-level), and was not a test bat for many years. Now he is a test-class bat, and a handy bowler.
 
Hodgepodge said:
Kallis is one of the rare all-rounders whose batting average is more than 20 ahead of his bowling average. I think it might be him and sobers.
Click to expand...


Bradmans batting average was 60 ahead of his bowling
 
swansrule100 said:
Bradmans batting average was 60 ahead of his bowling
Click to expand...
He took 2 for 72 in his test career I think.

One of those two wickets was the great Wally Hammond. :eek:
 

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Was trying to think of a reasonably fair and interesting way to compare Kallis with Sobers. I thought of the following, but I'm not stating it's the most fairest. Someone else may have other ideas.

Sobers had 160 innings for 8032 runs at 57.78 with 26 100s and 30 50s.
Kallis after 160 innings has 7563 runs at 56.86 with 23 100s and 37 50s.
After scoring 8033 Test runs Kallis had played 172 innings for an average of 55.78 with 24 100s and 40 50s.

Sobers took 109 catches from his 93 Tests.
Kallis took 109 catches after 110 Tests.

Sobers had 235 wickets from 93 Tests at an average of 34.03 and a strike rate of 91.91 with 6 five wicket hauls.
Kallis took his 235th wicket in his 122nd Test with an average of 31.34 and a strike rate of 67.04 with 5 five wicket hauls.
 
Imran had a golden patch 1982 - 1985
Over an 18 match period - 5 v Aus, 6 v Ind, 3 v Eng, 4 v SL
105 wkts at 14.3, 802 runs at 53.4
 
Sobers
Imran - his 80s peak is just phenomenal, not to mention his record against the great West Indies team
Kallis - would be second if not for his slow SR and the inability to go on and get big scores..just 2 double hundreds in 150 or so matches says it all really. Didn't do much against the best team of his era either.
 
Read that article...Indians are so funny...Kapil Dev...
surprised Tendulkar wasn't just the greatest batsman in history but the greatest all rounder too ><
Kapil Dev was a great test cricketer and good alrounder who's batting average was about 30 and his bowling average about the same.
But to list him ahead of Kallis...stupid.
Probably behind even botham who would be a similar time frame.
 

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