Your countries first 3 xis of your era

[Tom Flint]

Shakib must the most balanced all rounder although not the best. He is bgd best bowler and top 4 bat

 

[stephen]

Yeah but it also points out the number of times he did not bowl as much. But yeah, I get what you mean. Maybe 1.5 wickets per match?

You still rule out Watson as an all rounder.

The thing is a lot of all rounders end up becoming specialist batsmen because it's easier on the body. Look at Steve Waugh. He took many of his 90 odd wickets early in his career before he became the 90s juggernaut that he was.

Saying someone is a "genuine all rounder" is the vogue thing to do in the commentary box but nearly every all rounder in reality is mostly picked based on their primary skill in tests. Because picking a guy averaging 25 to bat at 6 because he can get through ten overs an innings over a guy averaging 40 is a recipe for disaster as Australia have discovered every time Mitch Marsh plays. Similarly, you don't pick a guy averaging 35 with the ball to bat 9 because he averaged 20 with the bat.

All rounders that average less with the ball than the bat are rare and short lived (usually) and a lot of the guys who get classed as all rounders aren't taking more than 1.5 wpm or they're not averaging more than 25 with the bat.

Better off picking your 6 best bats, your best keeper and your 4 best bowlers and if that includes a batsman who can bowl a bit or a bowler who can bat a bit then that's great.

 

[trundler]

Kallis was a batsmen who could bowl. Hadlee was a bowler who could bat. Sobers was a batting all rounder. Imran was a bowling all rounder. Miller and Faulkner were half'n'half. That's how I view it.

 

[Kraken]

Kallis was a batsmen who could bowl. Hadlee was a bowler who could bat. Sobers was a batting all rounder. Imran was a bowling all rounder. Miller and Faulkner were half'n'half. That's how I view it.

Little bit harsh on Kallis with that view, he's a batting all-rounder for mine imo.

 

[Bijed]

I guess one drawback of applying career WPM criteria to all-rounders is that, with Watson as a good example, they can continue to play as batsmen even when injuries/fitness don't allow them to bowl, or severely limit it, whereas if a specialist bowler found themselves in the same situation, they might 'lose' a match from a statistical POV, but then would just be out of the team, rather than playing as a batsman an sort-of articifically skewing their WPM. I guess strictly speaking you'd have to only assess the matches of the careers of such players when they were selected and expected to contribute in both disciplines but that's not really a straightforward excercise.

Kallis' relatively weaker bowling doesn't stop him from being an ATG all-rounder imo because of the mix of it still being very useful and him being an ATG batsman to make up for it, although I don't think his bowling would have had to have been too much worse/used less for me to exclude him from ATG all-rounder status. I don't know exactly where I'd draw the line for sheer greatness in one discipline getting a player to be considered an ATG all-rounder despite their other discipline being merely adequate - to use an extreme example, there's no way I (or anyone, I hope) would ever call Bradman an all-rounder becuase he was godly with the bat and also bowled a few times and took a couple of wickets.

As a slightly pedantic aside, I prefer WPI over WPM, just because you cna be selected with the expectation of bowling and due to game situations end up not bowling, or maybe only in 1 innings, through no fault of your own, which would count against you in WPM terms. WPI is obviously not perfect in this regard either as game situation could lead to a Kallis or a Watson only bowling perhaps 1 or 2 overs, when you'd usually bank on a few more, but as I think CW established long ago, no statistic is without it's flaws (other than FCA obvs)

 

[trundler]

Alan Davidson
Wasim Akram
Richie Benaud
Richard Hadlee
Shaun Pollock
Andrew Flintoff
Imran Khan
Kapil Dev
Wilfred Rhodes
Ian Botham
Vinoo Mankad
Keith Miller
Aubrey Faulkner
Shakib Al Hassan
Tony Greig
Ben Stokes
Gary Sober
Jacques Kallis
Mushtaq Mohammad
Frank Worrell
Carl Hooper


The trundler scale of polarity

 

[honestbharani]

You still rule out Watson as an all rounder.

The thing is a lot of all rounders end up becoming specialist batsmen because it's easier on the body. Look at Steve Waugh. He took many of his 90 odd wickets early in his career before he became the 90s juggernaut that he was.

Saying someone is a "genuine all rounder" is the vogue thing to do in the commentary box but nearly every all rounder in reality is mostly picked based on their primary skill in tests. Because picking a guy averaging 25 to bat at 6 because he can get through ten overs an innings over a guy averaging 40 is a recipe for disaster as Australia have discovered every time Mitch Marsh plays. Similarly, you don't pick a guy averaging 35 with the ball to bat 9 because he averaged 20 with the bat.

All rounders that average less with the ball than the bat are rare and short lived (usually) and a lot of the guys who get classed as all rounders aren't taking more than 1.5 wpm or they're not averaging more than 25 with the bat.

Better off picking your 6 best bats, your best keeper and your 4 best bowlers and if that includes a batsman who can bowl a bit or a bowler who can bat a bit then that's great.

I guess one drawback of applying career WPM criteria to all-rounders is that, with Watson as a good example, they can continue to play as batsmen even when injuries/fitness don't allow them to bowl, or severely limit it, whereas if a specialist bowler found themselves in the same situation, they might 'lose' a match from a statistical POV, but then would just be out of the team, rather than playing as a batsman an sort-of articifically skewing their WPM. I guess strictly speaking you'd have to only assess the matches of the careers of such players when they were selected and expected to contribute in both disciplines but that's not really a straightforward excercise.

Kallis' relatively weaker bowling doesn't stop him from being an ATG all-rounder imo because of the mix of it still being very useful and him being an ATG batsman to make up for it, although I don't think his bowling would have had to have been too much worse/used less for me to exclude him from ATG all-rounder status. I don't know exactly where I'd draw the line for sheer greatness in one discipline getting a player to be considered an ATG all-rounder despite their other discipline being merely adequate - to use an extreme example, there's no way I (or anyone, I hope) would ever call Bradman an all-rounder becuase he was godly with the bat and also bowled a few times and took a couple of wickets.

As a slightly pedantic aside, I prefer WPI over WPM, just because you cna be selected with the expectation of bowling and due to game situations end up not bowling, or maybe only in 1 innings, through no fault of your own, which would count against you in WPM terms. WPI is obviously not perfect in this regard either as game situation could lead to a Kallis or a Watson only bowling perhaps 1 or 2 overs, when you'd usually bank on a few more, but as I think CW established long ago, no statistic is without it's flaws (other than FCA obvs)

Good points. WPI only makes sense when you know if they actually bowled in that inning and I am not sure those kind of stats are available. And it can still be bad for someone like Kallis coz he may not be called on to bowl given the strength of their seam attack a number of times. And then you have the Watson and Steve Waugh types who don't bowl much (or at all) past a certain point of their career, and esp. with the Sr. Waugh, it was a sizeable part of his career that he was not bowling. But I do think you have to look at how much they bowled in order to qualify them as all-rounders.

PS: I am sure we can expect crapinfo to "invent" FCA any time now.

 

[h_hurricane]

I would go with the below team for India

Gavaskar
Sehwag
Dravid
Tendulkar
Kohli
Laxman
Dhoni
Kapil
Jadeja
Shami
Bumrah

There is no way on god's green earth, I am going to leave out Jadeja out of an all time Indian XI.

2nd XI

Mankad
Merchant
Pujara
Vishwanath
Amarnath
Umrigar
Kirmani
Ashwin
Srinath
Zaheer
Ishant

3rd XI

Gambhir
Vijay
Vengsarkar
Azharuddin
Rahane
Ganguly
Saha
Bhuvi
Kumble
Umesh
Bedi

 

[trundler]

I would go with the below team for India

Gavaskar
Sehwag
Dravid
Tendulkar
Kohli
Laxman
Dhoni
Kapil
Jadeja
Shami
Bumrah

There is no way on god's green earth, I am going to leave out Jadeja out of an all time Indian XI.

2nd XI

Mankad
Merchant
Pujara
Vishwanath
Amarnath
Umrigar
Kirmani
Ashwin
Srinath
Zaheer
Ishant

3rd XI

Gambhir
Vijay
Vengsarkar
Azharuddin
Rahane
Ganguly
Saha
Bhuvi
Kumble
Umesh
Bedi

You're in your mid 30s aren't you? Doubt you've seen Merchant.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Here is the full list of the 57 players in history that have taken 50+ wickets and have a batting average >30.

https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/e...alval2=wickets;template=results;type=allround

When you see the records of Kallis and Pollock and think they were in the same team together for so long but Australia dominated the world over most of their careers it makes you appreciate how freaky the Aussie side were at the time that South Africa weren't at that level consistently despite having 2 of their greatest ever players putting in performances like they did so often.

 

[h_hurricane]

You're in your mid 30s aren't you? Doubt you've seen Merchant.

Lol I didn't read the title. From the time I was born, my first team remains the same.

2nd XI

Gambhir
Vijay
Pujara
Amarnath
Azhar
Ganguly
Kirmani
Ashwin
Kumble
Srinath
Zaheer

3rd XI- hard to get a good team out of this, hence giving it a pass.

 

[a massive zebra]

I don't know exactly where I'd draw the line for sheer greatness in one discipline getting a player to be considered an ATG all-rounder despite their other discipline being merely adequate - to use an extreme example, there's no way I (or anyone, I hope) would ever call Bradman an all-rounder becuase he was godly with the bat and also bowled a few times and took a couple of wickets.

Don Bradman answering a question about his bowling:

Jack Egan: We're you a frustrated bowler?

Don Bradman: No, I think instead of being frustrated I was just the reverse - I was always hoping they would not put me onto bowl! I never professed to being a good bowler! Although I got a lot of wickets in the country as a boy, that was on concrete pitches with coir bats where you could turn the ball a lot, and obviously the standard of play wasn't that high. But as far as first class cricket was concerned i never considered myself as a bowler and I was always perfectly happy to be just classified as a batsman and leave the bowling to somebody else who knew what he was doing!

See 19:30 here:

 

[stephen]

When you see the records of Kallis and Pollock and think they were in the same team together for so long but Australia dominated the world over most of their careers it makes you appreciate how freaky the Aussie side were at the time that South Africa weren't at that level consistently despite having 2 of their greatest ever players putting in performances like they did so often.

The main difference was that Australia had a better batting lineup and Shane Warne. As soon as Warne retired and Steyn came on the scene, South Africa have consistently beaten Australia in Australia (even if they've lost the return series until the most recent tour).

That late 90s SA side though had Donald, Pollock and Kallis (amongst a few other very good players). But Australia's batting was always too good. Steve Waugh in particular loved piling on the runs against SA.

 

[JBMAC]

First eleven

Brown
Morris
Bradman
Hassett
Miller
McCool
Lindwall
Tallon
Johnson
Toschacl
Johnston


Second Eleven

McDonald
Simpson
Harvey
O'Neill
Favell
K.Mackay
Davidson
Benaud
Grout
Meckiff
Kline

Third Eleven
Langer
Hayden
Ponting
Martyn
S.Waugh
Gilchrist
Warne
Bichel
Gillespie
McGrath



ALL these teams I have seen playing. Admittedly they were all at The Gabba. and there might be some contentious selections but I would back each eleven to win

 

[JBMAC]

First eleven

Brown
Morris
Bradman
Hassett
Miller
McCool
Lindwall
Tallon
Johnson
Toschacl
Johnston


Second Eleven

McDonald
Simpson
Harvey
O'Neill
Favell
K.Mackay
Davidson
Benaud
Grout
Meckiff
Kline

Third Eleven
Langer
Hayden
Ponting
Martyn
S.Waugh
Gilchrist
Warne
Bichel
Gillespie
McGrath



ALL these teams I have seen playing. Admittedly they were all at The Gabba. and there might be some contentious selections but I would back each eleven to win

 

[jimmy101]

How would you rank those three sides JBMAC? Also, the third eleven only seems to have 10 players.

 

[AndyZaltzHair]

Let me do Kenya

First XI

1. Kennedy Otieno +
2. Irfan Karim
3. Steve Tikolo*
4. Collins Obuya
5. Maurice Odumbe 6
6. Tanmay Mishra
7. Thomas Odoyo 2
8. Aasif Karim 5
9. Martin Suji 1
10. Peter Ongondo 3
11. Rajab Ali 4

2nd XI

1. Ravindu Shah
2. Seren Waters
3. Duncan Allan
4. David Obuya +
5. Rakep Patel
6. Ragheb Aga 4
7. James Kamande (c) 6
8. Josphat Ababu 3
9. Joseph Angara 2
10. Hiren Varaiya 5
11. Alfred Luseno 1

3rd XI

1. Morris Ouma*
2. Dipak Chundasama
3. Alex Obanda
4. Tariq Iqbal +
5. Hitesh Modi
6. Tony Suji
7. Nelson Odhiambo 3
8. Shem Ngoche 4
9. Nehemiah Odhiambo 2
10. James Ngoche 5
11. Elijah Otieno 1

The first XI is pretty gun

 

[a massive zebra]

First eleven

Brown
Morris
Bradman
Hassett
Miller
McCool
Lindwall
Tallon
Johnson
Toschacl
Johnston


Second Eleven

McDonald
Simpson
Harvey
O'Neill
Favell
K.Mackay
Davidson
Benaud
Grout
Meckiff
Kline

Third Eleven
Langer
Hayden
Ponting
Martyn
S.Waugh
Gilchrist
Warne
Bichel
Gillespie
McGrath



ALL these teams I have seen playing. Admittedly they were all at The Gabba. and there might be some contentious selections but I would back each eleven to win

These XIs are meant to be selected in order of quality rather than the era they played in. Your first team is basically the immediate post war team, your second team is players from the 50s and 60s, and your final team is players from the first decade of the 21st century.

 

[AndrewB]

These XIs are meant to be selected in order of quality rather than the era they played in. Your first team is basically the immediate post war team, your second team is players from the 50s and 60s, and your final team is players from the first decade of the 21st century.

They aren't "best of" teams from an era, they're actual Australian XIs who played in a Test at Brisbane (v India in 1947, v West Indies in 1960 and v England in 2002 - Lehmann is the missing player)

 

[Prince EWS]

1 Hamilton Masakadza
2 Stuart Carlisle
3 Craig Ervine
4 Brendan Taylor
5 Sean Williams
6 Sean Ervine
7 Tatenda Taibu
8 Heath Streak
9 Andy Blignaut
10 Raymond Price
11 Kyle Jarvis

1 Tino Mawoyo
2 Vusi Sibanda
3 Mark Vermeulen
4 Craig Wishart
5 Peter Moor
6 Sikandar Raza
7 Regis Chakabva
8 Graeme Cremer
9 Tinashe Panyangara
10 Douglas Hondo
11 Tendai Chatara

1 Trevor Gripper
2 Kevin Kasuza
3 Dion Ebrahim
4 Stuart Matsikenyeri
5 Malcolm Waller
6 Elton Chigumbura
7 Richard Mutumbami
8 Keegan Meth
9 Blessing Mahwire
10 Shingi Masakadza
11 Brian Vitori