simonlee48
School Boy/Girl Captain
I have wondered about this as well. Imran is not picked often as a bowler despite him being able to contribute with bat.Clearly, most experts don't rate Imran as the top 5-6 bowlers otherwise he should be making ATG XI more frequently due to his ability to contribute with bat.But once gain, not that I don't believe he should be included in an ATG side, but then why is he included in so few and even Wasim seems to be rated higher as a bowler and is selected to such teams by more persons.
Just a speculation - Reason may be him being a gun bowler only for 40% of his entire career. You are not going to find too many great bowlers who were contributing greatly with ball for only 40% of their entire career.
1971-1979( First 25 matches) -- Avg 31.88 & SR 69.6 [ Nothing great here ]
A great middle phase covering 35 matches.
1987- 1992 ( Last 28 matches) : Bowling Avg 27.52 [ He bowled lot less in this phase ]
If you flip the equation, will you take a batsman in your ATG XI who was contributing greatly with his bat only for 40% of his career? I will personally think very hard before picking that batsman. For a batsman , I would like to see a much longer period out of his entire career where he contributed greatly.
I personally think , this where Imran loses many brownie points.
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