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The greatest non-allrounder at their non-specialist discipline

Brook's side

International Regular
Akram has 3 centuries If I am not mistaken. One of them came against Murali and Co.
"A dream cricketer. At his best Wasim Akram plays like most of us would wish to. He has complete mastery over swing and seam, and sometimes moves the ball both ways in one delivery. All this comes at high speed from a quick, ball-concealing action, and is backed up by the threat of a dangerous bouncer or deceptive slower delivery. Akram is rated by many as the best left-arm fast bowler of all time, and his career record certainly bears that out - along with the high regard of his contemporaries. He hit like a kicking horse, but batsmanship was one skill in which Akram underachieved..."

Averaged 22.
Batted most often at 8, and next most at 9.
 

Migara

International Coach
I can throw in Ravi Ratnayeke too. Better batsman than Vaas, but little short on bowling quality compared to Vaas. (25.2 with bat, 35.1 with the ball)
 

reyrey

U19 Captain
Walcott was actually a really good keeper until he gave up the gloves due to back problems and having secured his position as a batsman in the team. By everything I read, he was better against spin than Dujon.
That's fair.

I'll go with Dilshan. Mainly a batter who batted in the middle order, also opened, excellent in the field, bowled spin, kept wicket and did it in all 3 formats.
 

Brook's side

International Regular
That's fair.

I'll go with Dilshan. Mainly a batter who batted in the middle order, also opened, excellent in the field, bowled spin, kept wicket and did it in all 3 formats.
The definition of a specialist! :laughing:

Seriously, we can't pick him as an opening bat on the basis that he was actually a middle order bat.

As for building a team, I suggest we need the keeper(s) to bowl seam up. There are several quality spin bowling options already. Walcott is really useful for this purpose as he'd be the quickest bowler and can share the gloves with Collingwood.

Perhaps Dilshan could be a candidate as an individual.
 
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Migara

International Coach
And odd thing about Ravi Ratnayeke was that with bat he averaged 11.5 at home. 30.5 away
With the ball, averaged 24.5 at home but 41.5 away.

At home bowler, away, batsman. As a batsman he averages in top 6 among Sri Lankans away.
 

Brook's side

International Regular
Woakes' batting average is actually the same as Hadlee (27).

Hadlee batting slightly higher though, approx 7.75 v 8 for Woakes.

I assume we're ruling Shaun Pollock out (average position about 7.8).
 

reyrey

U19 Captain
Saqlain Mushtaq.

He averaged only 14 with the bat and no one would dare call him an allrounder, BUT he did it at a strike rate of 25.72.

On average he faced just as many balls per innings as more genuine allrounders like Vettori and Flintoff. Perfect guy to have down at 9 or 10 and for night watchman duties.
 

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
Clearly Dhoni is a batsman.
I'd personally say Prior is clearly a wicketkeeper-batsman.
Knott....wouldn't like to call it. @wpdavid?
I don't know enough about Engineer to give an opinion, and I don't know who PJ is.
Knott was a proper keeper, no question. And he was a good enough batsman to make two hundreds against mid-1970s Australia and another against the great WI attack in 1976. But he wasn't in the side just for his batting and despite his keeping, unlike, say, Parks in a previous generation. The feeling at the time was that Taylor was an even better keeper, but I don't know how clear-cut that was. Sometimes there's an assumption that a better batsman must be a slightly inferior keeper, even if that isn't actually the case.

But I think it'll be tricky to make a call for keepers. Where does Gilchrist fit here? And where do you draw the line in terms of their abilities as a keeper?
 

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