20 Cwers ranked 18 all-rounders. Here is the countdown list!

[mr_mister]

So, hope it's pretty straightforward. If someone was ranked 1st in batting and 14th in bowling, they'd get 18 and 5 points respectively. Simple. The ranking is the combined total of all their points. I apologise for limiting to this 18 personally hand picked ARs, there were plenty of worthy names that missed out. But let me assure it was very time consuming to count all the votes so I couldn't have handled much more than 18 anyway


I'll try and get this list churned out reasonably fast. A week max.

 

[mr_mister]

18th. Dan Vettori

171 points

Batting: 14th (90 points)
Bowling: 17th (81 points)

Vettori is unlucky. Could once claim to be counted amongst his country's most reliable bowlers and batsmen. But he was never a superstar at either. His bowling strengths leaned more on the containment side, especially later in his career. Which was when his batting improved out of sight. He started churning out centuries and always found himself top 7, after starting his career closer to 11. Anyway, he's the first cab off the rank here.

 

[mr_mister]

17th. Learie Constantine

175 points

Batting: 18th (47 points)
Bowling: 12th (128 points)

It's hard to gauge the Baron's ability given both the fact he played in the 30s and that his team didn't play many tests back then. His test stats are often said to not do him justice, but his batting probably did contain a lot of slogging, based on various sources. Box office was mentioned a few times in the voting thread. Influenced many a west indian in the years to come.

His bowling was meant to be seriously sharp and him and Martindale were a solid new ball pairing way back when. It was enough to get him past Vettori and out of last place.

 

[mr_mister]

eh, I can never figure out how to post photos properly on this site. why are they so small lol

 

[mr_mister]

16th. Andrew Flintoff

281 points

Batting: 12th (156 points)
Bowling: 13th (125 points)

There was a huge gap in points between 17th and 16th, and hardly anything separating the next several players. So Freddie can feel hard done by with this ranking. His peak was brief, yes, but it resulted in one of the most inspired series ever against one of the strongest sides of all time. Ashes '05 will always be remembered as Freddie's ashes. Pity he couldn't maintain consistency in either discipline over a career, a small amount of both centuries and fivefers shows that he didn't click often enough to be a truly top tier AR

 

[OverratedSanity]

Use

 

[mr_mister]

15th. Chris Cairns

300 points

Batting: 13th (145 points)
Bowling: 10th (155 points)

Just narrowly edged in front Flintoff. Which is funny because I always considered them to be very similar players. Hard hitting pace bowling all rounders with similar records, and on their day capable of changing a game with either bat or ball. My favourite Cairns moment was his counter attacking 80 against England in '99. Missed a lot of games due to injury but was a huge presence whenever he was on the park. Was so surprised he only played 62 tests since his test career was so damn long and he was always an instant pick for NZ when fit.

He once held the record for most test sixes. Unfortunately after his retirement a bit of controversy surrounding him has surfaced but that's neither here nor there.

 

[jimmy101]

Nice start to the countdown MM

 

[Gnske]

I thought this was going to be a cheat-free list

Unsubbed

 

[mr_mister]

^he'll be back

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

Nice list so far. The Kiwis are dominating. Looking forward to see where Astle lands.

 

[mr_mister]

Sorry, Astle won't feature. Here is the original list of names


Aubrey Faulkner
Jack Gregory
Learie Constantine
Keith Miller
Vinoo Mankad
Richie Benaud
Gary Sobers
Trevor Goddard
Imran Khan
Richard Hadlee
Kapil Dev
Ian Botham
Chris Cairns
Shaun Pollock
Jacques Kallis
Dan Vettori
Andrew Flintoff
Shakib Al Hasan



I know people are missing but a) I didnt know if people could be bothered casting votes for lists of players any longer than this(for Astle to warrant inclusion we'd be doing lists of at least 40 lol)

and b) I had no good way of tallying this. I'm not excel spredsheet savvy so i just opened a word doc, wrote a players names, then slowly counted his votes

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

^^ I wasn't serious lol

 

[mr_mister]

oh. well for anyone who didnt see the original thread that post will remain standing

 

[mr_mister]

14th. Richie Benaud

316 points

Batting: 16th (67 points)
Bowling: 6th (249 points)

Benaud is the first out to have a big discrepancy in rankings between bat and ball. His bowling was a force and he surely has to be considered in the top 10 for leg spin ever. His bowling points in this thing nearly equal his total test wickets, which is funny. Anyway, my point is that he set the bar pretty high for his batting to live up to.

He was useful, striking a few centuries here and there throughout his career. He floated up and down the order quite regularly, hitting a ton batting at 4. Yet he only averaged 24 and this is likely the reason he is ranked quite poorly on this list.

The best ever captain too going by a recent thread, which adds further value that can't be quantified in this system.

 

[mr_mister]

13th. Jack Gregory


335 points

Batting: 11th (168 points)
Bowling: 9th (167 points)

Jack Gregory has only one point splitting his batting from his bowling. So he's a contender for the truest all-rounder of them all. He and his new ball partner Ted Macdonald terrorised England in the early 20s. Like Macdonald, his test bowing average is higher than expected, but he still took a lot of wickets in his short test career. That cemented his bowling legacy. His batting legacy however is a lot more complex. A bit of an enigma, he moved all around the order, scoring tons from 4 and 9, and 50+ scores opening the batting, as well as from 6, 7 and 8. He scored his runs fast, like many all-rounders.

He started his career playing alongside Warwick Armstrong and ended it in Bradman's debut series. The 20s are quite forgotten in a lot of cricket discussions I feel, but he was one of the main stars of the era.

 

[mr_mister]

12. Vinoo Mankad

344 points

Batting: 9th (200 points)
Bowling: 11th (144 points)

Vinoo batted at every single position in the team at least once, from 1-11 in only 44 tests. A true utility with the bat, he scored 5 test tons opening the batting. 2 of them were double centuries. He seemed like a terrific opener, very defensive and dour, but with tremendous concentration.

His bowling was good enough to allow him to be played as a sole spinner, not that India did that much. A great spin partner for Gupte, Mankad took two 8fers. He really reached great heights with both bat and ball. A match winner and the reason for the term Mankading.

 

[Howe_zat]

He seemed like a terrific opener, very defensive and dour, but with tremendous concentration.

Don't agree. You've got to put Vinoo's batting in the context of the time which was a crease occupation against maiden-bowling spinners nightmare. At Lord's in 1952 he scored 184 in four and a half hours, which is pretty normal now but he was batting with Vijay Hazare who scored 49 in four. Wisden talked up his free flowing performance and favoured it to other 'modern batsmen'.

His 231 against NZ in Chennai was made in 575 minutes, which presumably means he batted for less than 5 sessions. That seems like pretty good going to me, especially considering that Bert Sutcliffe made a three and a half hour 47 in response.

 

[Howe_zat]

Flintoff has been underrated as a bowler and overrated as a batsman I reckon.

 

[mr_mister]

Don't agree. You've got to put Vinoo's batting in the context of the time which was a crease occupation against maiden-bowling spinners nightmare. At Lord's in 1952 he scored 184 in four and a half hours, which is pretty normal now but he was batting with Vijay Hazare who scored 49 in four. Wisden talked up his free flowing performance and favoured it to other 'modern batsmen'.

His 231 against NZ in Chennai was made in 575 minutes, which presumably means he batted for less than 5 sessions. That seems like pretty good going to me, especially considering that Bert Sutcliffe made a three and a half hour 47 in response.

Ah okay, my bad. Thought he was a bit of a grafter. Must admit I know more about some players than others.