FaaipDeOiad
Hall of Fame Member
Hahahaha.
You realise he was in the top 5 wicket takers in world cricket for an entire decade? By way of comparison, in the last 5 years you'd have Murali, Warne, Kumble, McGrath and Ntini. Sobers was Ntini.
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The Greatest Allrounder Ever?
- Thread starter gunner
- Start date
You realise he was in the top 5 wicket takers in world cricket for an entire decade? By way of comparison, in the last 5 years you'd have Murali, Warne, Kumble, McGrath and Ntini. Sobers was Ntini.
Saurav Ganguly
Banned
You are insulting a good bowler like Ntini(having wickets/match ratio of 4.11) by comparing him with rubbish bowlers like Sobers(having wickets/match ratio of 2.52 only).Sobers is definitely one of the most worst bowlers in history of cricket because evem Mohammad Sami(having wickets/match ratio of 2.56) has a better wickets/match ratio than him.Sober's wkts/match ratio is not lot better than that Ajit Agarkar also.
So,Sobers might be one of your favourite players but don't insult other good bowlers by comparing them with the crap of Sobers.
Saurav Ganguly
Banned
Then, please explain why our beloved India has failed to produce a fast bowler even half good as Imran Khan?Yes he was.
How does "the first truly successful genuine fast bowler from the subcontinent" translate into "the best bowler ever".
Amazing? Sure. That doesn't make him any better than he actually was.
C_C
International Captain
Do you realize that you are speaking out of your arse and looking only at stats without understanding them ?
How the fook is someone gonna have 'awesome' wicket/match ratio when they bowled mostly on flat pitch conditions and didnt bowl much in helpful conditions ?!?
Sobers didnt chase records.
He chased women and rum.
He was an amatuer in attitude and didnt care to inflate his stats by taking tail end wickets a lot or bowling in favourable conditions only.
Sobers was easily the equal of Vaas/Gillespie with the new ball and perhaps not too far from Vettori as a spinner either.
When it comes to allrounders, first is Sobers. Then there is daylight. And then there is the rest.
There are only two players in history of cricket who would figure in over 90% of the alltime XIs written by cricket fans and analysts throughout the century : Bradman and Sobers.That should tell you something.
Consider this fact : Wes Hall was good enough to walk into any lineup ever fielded ( in last 5-6 years context, he'd rank second only to McGrath) and Sobers sometimes took the new ball with Hall and did better than Hall consistently.
However, he'd bowl 10-15 overs of extremely good left arm swing, take 2 wickets for 30 runs and be done. He wasn't interested in polishing off the tail to boost his figures either.
Consider another fact : Sobers was the prime partnership breaker of his team, despite his team having bowlers of the callibre of Hall, Griffiths, Gillchrist, Gibbs,Valentine and Ramadhin. Often when two batsmen were set and other bowlers were getting pasted, Sobers would come on and quickly end the partnership and then be done for the innings.
As a bowler, he was the exact opposite of Kallis : Kallis turns his arm around mostly on very pace friendly wickets and on absolute flat wickets, he rarely bowls and if he does, he does the job of a part timer giving rest to the main bowlers. Sobers bowled sparingly on pace friendly or spin friendly conditions and he bowled a lot on batting friendly wickets. Sobers also is arguably a better batsman than Imran was a bowler. Imran consistently makes it to the top 10 pace bowlers alltime list. Sobers consistently makes it to top 5 batsmen of alltime list. If Sobers had any weakness, it'd be captaincy and a lot of it was to do with his inability to grasp the fact that not everyone is a once-in-a-century talent like himself and can't work miracles like he could.
Imran i'd agree is the second best allrounder alltime - ahead of Miller marginally.
But he is easily and comfortably far far behind Sobers as an allrounder.
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adharcric
International Coach
We suck. How does that make Imran the greatest bowler of all time?
Saurav Ganguly
Banned
McGrath,Marshall,Barnesetc all played for countiries where conditions were extremly bowling friendly and while Imran Khan played for a country about whom's one of the wickets legendary australian "greentop bully" Dennis Lillee said"Dig my grandma's grave here".That should give u a bit of Idea why I think about Imran Khan like that.Bowlers of other counties succeed because of conditions(had it not been same then India & Sri Lanka would've also produced bowlers like Wasim Akram & Imran Khan),people like Imran Khan are exceptions & also have excellent averages,sothey should be placed a fair bit above all other bowlers.
Prince EWS
Global Moderator
What about this one?
Fiery
Banned
You're just embarassing yourself man. Maybe you should do some research or shut up.
Perm
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Quite possible the most amusing thread ever, right up there with the Best of Sean Fuller.
Fiery
Banned
Ha ha. psxpro = Borat
C_C
International Captain
Look, I am a big fan of Imran,Wasim and Waqar - the former two i'd put in my top 10 alltime pace bowler's list and the latter i'd include in the top 15 overall ( and top two-three before injury).
However, the reason they succeeded is not rocket science and neither is it purely down to the awesome stunning superb skills of the three that were way way beyond that of anyone else (though in Akram's case, i am willing to believe that) in history of cricket.
Pakistan did not have any great fast bowler before Imran.
Fazal Mahmood was supremely good on matting wickets (where he could cut the ball miles) but much like Underwood-out-of-a-sticky-wicket, he was not the terror he was on matting on other sufaces.
Imran was the first bona-fide pace bowler from the subcontinent and there is a very good reason for that : Imran was the first pace bowler from the subcontinent to play extensively in the county leagues in England, back in the day when County cricket was the top form of cricket outside of test cricket.
Imran was not exactly an instant success either - he was an average bowler in the early-mid 70s and that is exactly the period he spent learning the trade in county cricket.
After he learnt the proper fundamentals at county cricket, he started turning into a superb bowler by the late 70s and by mid 80s, he was perhaps second in the world only to Malcolm Marshall.
He then passed on those skills to Wasim and Waqar since he was such a good groomer of talent.
The success of Wasim and Waqar along with success of Imran is what put fast bowling in the Pakistani conciousness and kids started to fancy themselves as fast bowlers.
This created the likes of Shoaib Akhtar or Mohd. Asif.
LongHopCassidy
International Captain
His comment was unquestionably unfounded, but you're being very dismissive - not to mention confrontational - towards what is a perfectly valid piece of statistical evidence, even if the conclusions drawn are somewhat tenuous.
One argument can be taken that Sobers had sublime backup in Hall, Griffith, Ramadhin, Valentine and Gibbs that his bowling was secondary to his batting WRT the team's immediate needs. He was never one for preserving his statistics, anyway.
Fiery
Banned
OK apologies Saurav Ganguly. My reaction was in response to using words such as "crap" in describing one of the all-time masters of the game. Got me a bit fired up. Sorry.
Prince EWS
Global Moderator
There are perfectly good arguments to suggest that Sobers's bowling wasn't all it was cracked up to be (although I don't neccessarily agree with all if any of them..) but to leave him off the poll altogether, as if to suggest that they were no feasible way that he was the best allrounder and that no-one would vote for him, is a completely ludicrous occurace. I can't get past it.
C_C
International Captain
I'd say Imran in the early-to-mid-80s was in contention for #1 bowler with Marshall and Hadlee.
Imran's bowling career was a bit different than Hadlee's though they both started in similar fashion : ordinary bowlers who developed into tremendous ones.
Yet, they differed in one significant aspect : while Hadlee started as a fast and erratic tearaway, Imran started as a medium pacer with the inswinger as his stock ball.
Imran scaled impressive heights by cranking up his speed while Hadlee did precisely the same by doing precisely the opposite.
Hadlee however, once 'matured', started producing consistent bowling displays day-in-day-out like McGrath did and he maintained that till the end of his career.
Imran, once 'matured', turned in 4-5 years of absolutely stunning bowling performances before declining to a 'very very good' standard.
In the early 80-85/86 period, he was, IMO, second only to Marshall. After 86, Imran was a different bowler. He had one fatal flaw in his bowling that ended his peak : his trademark 'giant' leap right before delivery. This put too much pressure on his leading ankle and predictably, it collapsed under stress fractures. He came back with a less jumpy action but could not recapture his 'best' since he lost considerable speed.
All three mind you, had their specific and unique 'advantages' :
Marshall had the luxury of bowling in the best bowling lineup of alltime for most of his career. He started with Holding (and arguably, Marshall-Holding opening combo is the most devastating in cricket's history), Garner, Croft and Roberts and finished with Walsh,Ambrose and Bishop.
Imran had the advantage of favourable umpiring. I know that home umpiring always had to contend with allegations of bais - real or perceived but in cricketing circles, it is also common knowledge that the most biassed umpires were either Aussies or Pakistanis of that era.
Hadlee's advantage was the Kiwi tactic of 'lets-prepare-the-greenest-pitch-we-can-find-and-wait-for-Paddles-to-nuke 'em'.
This is perhaps why i'd say Martin Crowe's record is not as good as it should be : I don't consider him to be in the same echelon as Lara-Tendulkar-Viv-Gavaskar but he should atleast be considered as good as Lloyd, Kanhai, Harvey etc. group
But all in all, i'd say that one big reason why i'd rate Waqar, Donald,Imran, Lillee and Bishop ultimately below the likes of Akram,Marshall, McGrath,Ambrose,Hadlee, etc. is because once the former group lost their pace/bounce, they declined noticably while the other group did not/had very little reliance on speed.
Akram,McGrath and Hadlee were not reliant on it. Marshall and Ambrose became excellent fast-medium bowlers near the end of their careers.
Ambrose though became largely a containing bowler in the last year and half of his career because his knees were bothering him so much that he bowled in the mid 70s mph range.
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