All-rounders opening the batting

[Sylvester]

Mark Taylor and Slater were the last pair to both get a wicket while opening in the match.

 

[Richard]

There must be a few common names.. Shahid Afridi, Chris Gayle, Sanath Jayasuriya, maybe Thilakaratne Dilshan at the moment.. I think Wilfred Rhodes used to open the batting for a while as well. I'm sure there must be more..

For a while, as in forming a fairly storied opening pair with Jack Hobbs. If I'm not mistaken they held the record for opening partnership for a long time (350+) till it was broken by another all rounder-batsman opener pair (Mankad-Roy). Both pairs likely to be in the top 3 opening combinations ever for their respective countries - certainly for Mankad-Roy (as the other two are Gavaskar-Chauhan, Sehwag-Gambhir).

I said "for a while" simply because he wasn't always an opener. He's played 1000+ first class games if I remember the stats right and quite a few of them were spent not opening. The beginning part of his career, he was predominantly a bowler. It took him a few years to start opening regularly I think.

Should be pointed-out that during the time Rhodes was regularly opening the batting at Test level he was for the most part not bowling much or at all, and playing purely as a specialist opening batsman.

Anyway the clear pattern is that there's plenty of batting-all-rounders (Neil Johnson for instance) or batsmen-who-bowl-a-bit (Mark Waugh) who've been manufactured into ODI openers with great success, but not that many all-rounders of roughly equal batting and bowling ability (not that there's all that many of them anyway) have ever opened in Tests. Most Test opening batsmen are bowlers of no tremendous note, and decent part-timers at best.

 

[Sir Alex]

Virender Sehwag

 

[Migara]

Sanath Jayasuriya did for a long time. Ravindran Ratnayake for few matches. Dilshan These days do it (off spinner & keeper). Consider Chris Gayle as well.

 

[Migara]

Phil Simmons, Chandika Hathurusinghe also have shouts of you consider them to be all rounders

 

[Richard]

Simmons is an interesting one in that he sort of became an all-rounder at the international level as it became clear he was not a good enough batsman to be playing on that alone.

 

[SJS]

I cant believe no one has mentioned WG Grace !! Shocking.

 

[zaremba]

Blimey, that's a bit embarrassing.

[CW hangs its collective head in shame]

 

[aussie]

An XI of pure all-rounders:

Barlow
Mankad
Kallis
Sobers
Miller
Procter
Botham
Imran (c)
Knott +
Benaud
Hadlee

Picked Knott since he was argubaly the best all-round "pure glovesman" of all time to play tests. Although the likes of Grout, Evans, Blackham etc have equally strong cases.

 

[zaremba]

A "New Ian Botham" All-Rounder XI

1. RC Irani
2. AJ Hollioake
3. CS Cowdrey (c)
4. DJ Capel
5. RJ Blakey (w)
6. MA Ealham
7. CC Lewis
8. BC Hollioake
9. M Watkinson
10. DR Pringle
11. PAJ DeFreitas

Edit: I've dropped Craig White and Dominic Cork on the grounds that they each briefly hinted at competence.

 

[aussie]

Very harsh on Craig White there. Get him out of that side TBH, his performances for ENG between WI 2000 to AUS 2002/03 where very solid..

 

[zaremba]

Very harsh on Craig White there. Get him out of that side TBH, his performances for ENG between WI 2000 to AUS 2002/03 where very solid..

Fair point - I've fixed it.

Putting that team together was quite a traumatic experience tbh. And I limited myself to those who were picked before Andrew Flintoff. So no room for Ian Blackwell, Anthony McGrath or Gavin Hamilton. Or Amjal Shazaad or Luke Wright for that matter.

 

[fredfertang]

No Ian Greig Mr Z?

 

[zaremba]

No Ian Greig Mr Z?

Blimey, had forgotten all about him. There may be more as well.


Ian Grieg. For ****'s sake. England really have plumbed some murky depths.

 

[zaremba]

I also forgot Dermot Reeve.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Simmons is an interesting one in that he sort of became an all-rounder at the international level as it became clear he was not a good enough batsman to be playing on that alone.

And Lendl threatening to suffer the same.

 

[aussie]

Fair point - I've fixed it.

Putting that team together was quite a traumatic experience tbh. And I limited myself to those who were picked before Andrew Flintoff. So no room for Ian Blackwell, Anthony McGrath or Gavin Hamilton. Or Amjal Shazaad or Luke Wright for that matter.

Haha indeed, it had to be very traumatic..

 

[Richard]

A "New Ian Botham" All-Rounder XI

1. RC Irani
2. AJ Hollioake
3. CS Cowdrey (c)
4. DJ Capel
5. RJ Blakey (w)
6. MA Ealham
7. CC Lewis
8. BC Hollioake
9. M Watkinson
10. DR Pringle
11. PAJ DeFreitas

Edit: I've dropped Craig White and Dominic Cork on the grounds that they each briefly hinted at competence.

Hinted at far more than that, albeit you're right in the brevity stakes. DeFreitas was a better Test bowler in the end than either Cork or White; even Ealham hardly let anyone down despite clearly not being Test-standard. Wouldn't Pringle and Watkinson bat about 3 places higher than you've put them too? And you later mention Reeve - get him in instead of Chris Cowdrey to captain.

 

[zaremba]

Pringle is right down there where he belongs in my opinion. He was a Test number 8 or 9 and at least as bad as the rest of them. Watkinson might grumble about batting too low but it would at least take his mind off his common bugbear of "we lost the Championship because Manchester is a miserable swamp".

Sorry but Cowdrey has to captain in honour of 1988. On that there cam be no compromise.

I thought you might come to the defence of Ealham Richard! I'm prepared to replace him with Iam Grieg, but cbf editing again because it's a bit fiddly using an iPhone. Consider it done.

 

[Richard]

Maybe Pringle was a Test eight or nine at best but he was certainly better than Ben Hollioake, and Watkinson was better than all of Holloake B, Lewis and probably Ealham too. As I say, if Pringle is in there Reeve just has to be for my money, they were basically the exact same player. Drop anyone, even David "I couldn't have been a better million-times-worse-version-of-Botham" Capel if you must.