The great 1980s all rounders

[rtramdas]

Imran 1
Hadlee 2
Botham 3
Kapil 4

With South Africans included I’d go


Procter 1
Imran 2
Hadlee 3
Rice and Botham 4th equal
Kapil 6

On a parallel world there is a batsman in Indian domestic named Ajay Sharma. He averages 67.5 with the bat. Moving forward ,i would consider him the 2nd best batsman after Sir Don Bradman

Ajay Sharma - Check Sharma's News, Career, Age, Rankings, Stats | ESPNcricinfo.com

 

[h_hurricane]

Statistically Kapil is inferior to the other 3 all rounders of 1980s if you ignore his longevity. The funny part is that the people who rank them statistically have no issues in placing Botham at the top when he is statistically inferior to Imran or Hadlee.

 

[mr_mister]

Depends on what metric you use.

Botham got a lot of tons

 

[rtramdas]

Was that cricket forum based in the 2nd most populous country on earth? Did a similar forum rank Tendulkar the best batsman of all time?

So what ?? Do not their opinions matter? Or do you feel that, just because the majority of voters in that poll were Indians , they voted out of sheer partiality??

Let me share one info: here. In his first 21823 balls(almost similar to Botham's 21815) where he averaged 29.11,Kapil's support bowling unit's combined avg: was only 38.8.For Botham the respective value was only 31.53. See the big difference of 38.8 - 31.53 = 7.27. In other words when ever Kapil played a test till he bowled his first 21823 balls, he bowled along with basically 3 fellow bowlers in general (assuming the team combination is 6 batsmen + 4 bowlers in general ) who avg:ed 38.8 each, where as for Botham it was only 31.53

The above data would give you a fair idea w.r.t the huge gap in bowling support enjoyed by these 2 players. Similarly there are several contexts to look into.

 

[Logan]

How many of the great all rounders could win matches with both batting and bowling? Let us see how some of them did in their secondary speciality.

1. Sobers took just 6 five wicket hauls in 93 Test matches.

2. Kallis took just 5 five wicket hauls in 166 Test matches.

3. Imran Khan scored 6 centuries in 88 Test matches. He scored just 2 centuries in his first 60 Test matches.

4. Richard Hadlee scored 2 centuries in 86 Test matches.

5. Kapil Dev scored 8 centuries in 131 Test matches.

6. Shaun Pollock scored 2 centuries in 102 Test matches.

7. Botham scored 14 centuries in 102 Test matches.



Only Botham seems like a genuine match winner with his secondary speciality. The rest seem like they can contribute with their secondary speciality but not genuine match winners.

 

[rtramdas]

How many of the great all rounders could win matches with both batting and bowling? Let us see how some of them did in their secondary speciality.

1. Sobers took just 6 five wicket hauls in 93 Test matches.

2. Kallis took just 5 five wicket hauls in 166 Test matches.

3. Imran Khan scored 6 centuries in 88 Test matches. He scored just 2 centuries in his first 60 Test matches.

4. Richard Hadlee scored 2 centuries in 86 Test matches.

5. Kapil Dev scored 8 centuries in 131 Test matches.

6. Shaun Pollock scored 2 centuries in 102 Test matches.

7. Botham scored 14 centuries in 102 Test matches.



Only Botham seems like a genuine match winner with his secondary speciality. The rest seem like they can contribute with their secondary speciality but not genuine match winners.

this too is determined by context. Yeah Kapil had only 8 100s to Botham's 14. But in >75 scores, Kapil had 15 to Botham's 16 only which underlines an important factor, that is the position they played in general and the role they did for the team. That is, Botham basically was a 4rth down batsman where as Kapil was a 5th down batsman whose role was to gather as much runs quickly as possible in the company of tail enders. That meant , in these >75 scores , Botham scored a bit more runs on the average where as Kapil scored much quickly on the average. Both has their own credits.But Botham was a pale shadow in Windies where as Kapil scored 2 almost run a ball 100s there which counts for a lot.

 

[h_hurricane]

How many of the great all rounders could win matches with both batting and bowling? Let us see how some of them did in their secondary speciality.

1. Sobers took just 6 five wicket hauls in 93 Test matches.

2. Kallis took just 5 five wicket hauls in 166 Test matches.

3. Imran Khan scored 6 centuries in 88 Test matches. He scored just 2 centuries in his first 60 Test matches.

4. Richard Hadlee scored 2 centuries in 86 Test matches.

5. Kapil Dev scored 8 centuries in 131 Test matches.

6. Shaun Pollock scored 2 centuries in 102 Test matches.

7. Botham scored 14 centuries in 102 Test matches.



Only Botham seems like a genuine match winner with his secondary speciality. The rest seem like they can contribute with their secondary speciality but not genuine match winners.

Their primary skills matter a lot more than their secondary skills. Imran and Hadlee were elite bowlers, among the best ever. Botham is not anywhere in the same planet as them in bowling and also got royally owned whenever he played WI.

We might be talking about all rounders here, but Hadlee and Imran comfortably averaged more with the bat than with the ball.

 

[h_hurricane]

Depends on what metric you use.

Botham got a lot of tons

Can see your point, but don't runs and averages matter more than hundreds ?

Also, if you just go with tons, Botham has no hundreds against WI in 20 tests.

 

[mr_mister]

Botham converted 14/16 from 75+ scores into tons? That makes him even more impressive imo

 

[Fuller Pilch]

How many of the great all rounders could win matches with both batting and bowling? Let us see how some of them did in their secondary speciality.

1. Sobers took just 6 five wicket hauls in 93 Test matches.

2. Kallis took just 5 five wicket hauls in 166 Test matches.

3. Imran Khan scored 6 centuries in 88 Test matches. He scored just 2 centuries in his first 60 Test matches.

4. Richard Hadlee scored 2 centuries in 86 Test matches.

5. Kapil Dev scored 8 centuries in 131 Test matches.

6. Shaun Pollock scored 2 centuries in 102 Test matches.

7. Botham scored 14 centuries in 102 Test matches.



Only Botham seems like a genuine match winner with his secondary speciality. The rest seem like they can contribute with their secondary speciality but not genuine match winners.

Seems like an odd thing to measure. When Hadlee scored his 99 v England in 1984 England was bowled out for under 100 in both innings. Was that 99 not matchwinning?

Also Shakib has only scored 5 test 100s (24 50s) along with 18 5-fers in 55 tests but he's clearly better with the bat than all of them except Sobers and Mall is.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Kallis (not Mall is)

 

[Bolo]

How many of the great all rounders could win matches with both batting and bowling? Let us see how some of them did in their secondary speciality.

1. Sobers took just 6 five wicket hauls in 93 Test matches.

2. Kallis took just 5 five wicket hauls in 166 Test matches.

3. Imran Khan scored 6 centuries in 88 Test matches. He scored just 2 centuries in his first 60 Test matches.

4. Richard Hadlee scored 2 centuries in 86 Test matches.

5. Kapil Dev scored 8 centuries in 131 Test matches.

6. Shaun Pollock scored 2 centuries in 102 Test matches.

7. Botham scored 14 centuries in 102 Test matches.



Only Botham seems like a genuine match winner with his secondary speciality. The rest seem like they can contribute with their secondary speciality but not genuine match winners.

Hadlee scoring 40 is a match winning innings when he has bowled the opposition out for stuff all twice.

Kallis taking 2 wickets is a match winning performance when he has scored a thousand runs and allowed his team to effectively field an extra player.

100s and 5 wicket hauls are utterly arbitrary measures anyway.

 

[aussie tragic]

Botham passed 200 wickets and 2000 runs in his 42nd Test. Pretty sure no-one else ever got close to that?

 

[mr_mister]

Can see your point, but don't runs and averages matter more than hundreds ?

Also, if you just go with tons, Botham has no hundreds against WI in 20 tests.

Do averages mean more than wickets for a bowler? If so, Warnies far behind a lot of folk

I agree average is probably the best measure of quality, but Bothams aggregate/quantity records are immense.

Nobody else has taken 300 wickets and notched 10 tons in tests(i think), and Botham cleared both those barriers comfortably.

 

[h_hurricane]

Botham has only one 75+ score against WI in 37 innings. None away from home. His highest score in WI is 38 in 17 innings.

If you just take out his record against Ind, SL and NZ (3 of the weaker teams of his time), he averages 30 with the ball and 27 with the bat.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Seems like an odd thing to measure. When Hadlee scored his 99 v England in 1984 England was bowled out for under 100 in both innings. Was that 99 not matchwinning?

Also Shakib has only scored 5 test 100s (24 50s) along with 18 5-fers in 55 tests but he's clearly better with the bat than all of them except Sobers and Mall is.

Just googled it - in that match v England Sir Richard scored 99 off 81 balls and had match figures of 8 for 44!

 

[h_hurricane]

Botham passed 200 wickets and 2000 runs in his 42nd Test. Pretty sure no-one else ever got close to that?

Why do we need to take out one part of someone's career just to make him look better than he is ? We all agree he was awesome in the first half

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Botham passed 200 wickets and 2000 runs in his 42nd Test. Pretty sure no-one else ever got close to that?

He was the fastest to 200/2000, but Shakib beat him to 200/3000. Kapil is the only one to do the 4000/400 although Vettori possibly would've without all the injuries

 

[h_hurricane]

Do averages mean more than wickets for a bowler? If so, Warnies far behind a lot of folk

I agree average is probably the best measure of quality, but Bothams aggregate/quantity records are immense.

Nobody else has taken 300 wickets and notched 10 tons in tests(i think), and Botham cleared both those barriers comfortably.

Which is why we go in depth to find against whom he performed. Botham averaged 70 with the bat and 26 with the ball against Ind. On the other hand 21 with the bat and 35 with the ball against WI. 2 extreme outliers against teams with massive gulf in quality.

Warne is a spinner so comparing him with pacers is like apples vs oranges.

 

[rtramdas]

One factor I give preference to more than any thing is the 'performance vs best abroad' , in this case vs Windies in Windies . Here Kapil was a monster when compared to the others in every sense.