Evaluating the top all rounders of all time

[Neil Pickup]

I think that's a job for Ginger!

I don't.

 

[SJS]

interested to know how jimmy sinclair got on there and someone like wilfred rhodes did not ?

I took the top 25 of the 46 that fitted the criteria. If you look at the charts which have the final list, you will find that even Sinclair is not there. He made it when the bowling criteria was more stringent for eligibility but Rhodes didnt(compare their bowling points).

I must admit that some of the figures here were very revealing for me too. Faulkner , for example and the disparity between Imran and Hadlee on the one hand and Kapil on the other.

Here's the complete list.

Batting points... Bowling Points... TOTAL POINTS... Name
1... 11.56... 5.31... 16.86... Sobers, Garfield St A
2..... 7.54... 8.64... 16.18... Imran Khan
3.... 5.43... 10.52...15.96... Hadlee, Richard J
4..... 6.52... 8.62...15.14... Pollock, Shaun M
5... 10.75... 4.36... 15.11... Kallis, Jacques H
6..... 8.16... 6.89... 15.05... Faulkner, George A
7..... 7.39... 7.44... 14.83... Gregory, John M
8..... 6.71... 7.89... 14.60... Botham, Ian T
9..... 6.71... 7.38... 14.09... Cairns, Christopher L
10... 6.30... 7.73... 14.03... Mankad, Mulvantrai H
11... 7.40... 6.49... 13.89... Miller, Keith R
12... 5.10... 8.35... 13.44... Tate, Maurice W
13... 6.89... 6.30... 13.19... Goddard, Trevor L
14... 8.09... 5.11... 13.19... Greig, Anthony W
15... 6.21... 6.96... 13.17... Kapil Dev
16... 4.89... 8.27... 13.16... Benaud, Richard
17... 4.53... 8.36... 12.89... Wasim Akram
18... 6.05... 6.05... 12.10... Noble, Montague A
19... 4.23... 7.85... 12.08... Lindwall, Raymond R
20... 4.71... 7.19... 11.90... Streak, Heath H
21... 4.08... 7.77... 11.85... Taylor, Bruce R
22... 6.53... 5.17... 11.70... Prabhakar, Manoj M
23... 7.48... 4.20... 11.68... Kelleway, Charles E
24... 4.67... 6.98... 11.65... Giffen, George
25... 4.84... 6.80... 11.64... Allen, George O B
26... 5.41... 6.13... 11.54... Strang, Paul A
27... 6.60... 4.57... 11.16... Flintoff, Andrew
28... 6.36... 4.49... 10.84... Atkinson, Dennis St E
29... 4.60... 6.10... 10.71... Lewis, Clairmonte C
30... 6.47... 4.20... 10.67... Phadkar, Dattaray G
31... 6.04... 4.60... 10.64... Rhodes, Wilfred
32... 6.19... 4.38... 10.56... Julien, Bernard D
33... 5.95... 4.54... 10.49... Bailey, Trevor E
34... 5.01... 5.43... 10.44... Durani, Salim A
35... 5.24... 5.07... 10.31... Knight, Barry R
36... 6.06... 4.20... 10.26... Gomez, Gerald E
37... 4.05... 6.03... 10.08...Vettori, Daniel L
38... 4.46... 5.59... 10.04... Intikhab Alam
39... 4.65... 5.29... 9.94... Sinclair, James H
40... 4.68... 5.10... 9.78... Barnes, William
41... 5.14... 4.51... 9.65... Nadkarni, Raghunath G
42... 5.19... 4.29... 9.49... Braund, Leonard C
43... 4.09... 5.22... 9.31... Bracewell, John G
44... 4.87... 4.20... 9.07... Ulyett, George
45... 4.52... 4.46... 8.98... Holford, David A J
46... 4.65... 4.20... 8.85... Illingworth, Raymond

 

[SJS]

Rhodes rating as a bowler suffers because in the latter part of his career, his bowling was not dominant and he was no more the strike bowler of his early career. Thus overall in his career his rating suffers. Just like Kallis's bowling rating suffers due to his indifferent performance of recent times.

 

[Neil Pickup]

If we multiply the batting and bowling points rather than adding:

	NameX		Pts	Change
1	Imran		651456	1
2	Sobers		614992	-1
3	Hadlee		571236	0
4	Faulkner	562224	2
5	Pollock		562024	-1
6	Gregory		549816	1
7	Botham		529419	1
8	Cairns		495198	1
9	Mankad		486990	1
10	Miller		480260	1
11	Kallis		468700	-6
12	Goddard		434070	2
13	Kapil		432216	2
14	Tate		425850	-2
15	Greig		413399	-2
16	Benaud		404403	0
17	Wasim		378708	0
18	Noble		366025	0
19	Streak		338649	1
20	Prabhakar	337601	2
21	Lindwall	332055	-2
22	Strang		331633	4
23	Allen		329120	2
24	Giffen		325966	0
25	Taylor		317016	-4
26	Kelleway	314160	-3
27	Flintoff	308220	0
28	Atkinson	285564	0
29	Lewis		280600	0
30	Rhodes		277840	1
31	Durani		272043	3
32	Phadkar		271740	-2
33	Julien		271122	-1
34	Bailey		270130	-1
35	Knight		265668	0
36	Gomez		254520	0
37	Intikhab	249314	1
38	Sinclair	245985	1
39	Vettori		244215	-2
40	Barnes		238680	0
41	Nadkarni	231814	0
42	Braund		222651	0
43	Bracewell	213498	0
44	Ulyett		204540	0
45	Holford		201592	0
46	Illingworth	195300	0

 

[SJS]

If we multiply the batting and bowling points rather than adding:

Thats interesting.

Basically it rewards a more balanced all round ability and punishes those who excel in one discipline compared to the other.

If we add two bowling points for both Imran and Sobers, for example, Sobers would again overtake Imran but if we added these two points to their batting side (for both), Imran's lead would increase !!

That would be a paradox ecause if we take them as they are and then add one wicket per test for both or add 10 runs to both their batting averages, you would expect their relative points (points differential) to remain unchanged.

 

[Scaly piscine]

I personally think multiplying bowling & batting points is better, it rewards being good at bowling & batting rather than being excellent in one and a part-timer in the other, which isn't a true all-rounder really.

 

[Swervy]

for me,a more revealing analysis would be to only include figures from each players best say 50% portion of his career..to me it seems silly to calculate figures for someone like Botham, who fell away in the last several years of his career because of injury etc(so in that example only use the first 50%, to pluck a figure from the air, of the tests he played in), or Hadlee who undoubtedly got better as a bowler as his career went on..his performances in the late 80's shouldnt be lessened by how he bowled in the early 70's, he was a completely different bowler later on...this I feel would give a better show of the real talent these types of players had

Just a thought anyway

 

[biased indian]

for me,a more revealing analysis would be to only include figures from each players best say 50% portion of his career..to me it seems silly to calculate figures for someone like Botham, who fell away in the last several years of his career because of injury etc(so in that example only use the first 50%, to pluck a figure from the air, of the tests he played in), or Hadlee who undoubtedly got better as a bowler as his career went on..his performances in the late 80's shouldnt be lessened by how he bowled in the early 70's, he was a completely different bowler later on...this I feel would give a better show of the real talent these types of players had

Just a thought anyway

but the u r hurting peoples who performed consistenlty throug out their carrer and helping say some on like flintoff who had a forgettable start to his carrer but is perfroming outstandingly off late in his carrer

 

[Swervy]

but the u r hurting peoples who performed consistenlty throug out their carrer and helping say some on like flintoff who had a forgettable start to his carrer but is perfroming outstandingly off late in his carrer

i know what you mean...but ultimatly people are interested in knowing who the most talented or most effective players are when they are playing to full capacity/ability etc...if Sobers had continued playing tests into the 1980's his batting average would probably dropped to the mid 40's over his career and his bowling average would have been finishing up in the 40's, that means to include the years of least effectivness doesnt give a true indication of the impact that player had

 

[Scaly piscine]

but the u r hurting peoples who performed consistenlty throug out their carrer and helping say some on like flintoff who had a forgettable start to his carrer but is perfroming outstandingly off late in his carrer

But it's not really Flintoff's fault if he got picked for England during a time when he didn't put anywhere near the same effort into fitness etc. as he does now.

 

[biased indian]

i know what you mean...but ultimatly people are interested in knowing who the most talented or most effective players are when they are playing to full capacity/ability etc...if Sobers had continued playing tests into the 1980's his batting average would probably dropped to the mid 40's over his career and his bowling average would have been finishing up in the 40's, that means to include the years of least effectivness doesnt give a true indication of the impact that player had

ok then what u can do is take out say 10% of matches played by all that is thier last matches and not take the best 50%

 

[biased indian]

But it's not really Flintoff's fault if he got picked for England during a time when he didn't put anywhere near the same effort into fitness etc. as he does now.

if flintoffs fitness was not great and it was not flintoffs problem
who problem was that ??????

 

[Swervy]

if flintoffs fitness was not great and it was not flintoffs problem
who problem was that ??????

flintoff was picked far too early for the england team, one of the reasons why his averages are poor are because of this fact..this is one of the reasons why using statistics can be very misleading when looking at a whole career,a look at how someone performs when they are at their peak is a better indication of the talents a player has

 

[biased indian]

flintoff was picked far too early for the england team, one of the reasons why his averages are poor are because of this fact..this is one of the reasons why using statistics can be very misleading when looking at a whole career,a look at how someone performs when they are at their peak is a better indication of the talents a player has

u r saying this now once he has started performing.

but there is another side to this he is performing well now because he had made his game a better one due to the hardships he had to suffer in his early days,if he was picked later there is no 100% garuntee that he would have been a better player.the chances are that he would have taken as many years to improve his game

 

[Nedved's Fan]

You can't just exclude your favourite players bad performances because you like them. Nearly every player struggles at some point in their career, and if they don't they should be credited for being so consistent.

 

[Scaly piscine]

u r saying this now once he has started performing.

but there is another side to this he is performing well now because he had made his game a better one due to the hardships he had to suffer in his early days,if he was picked later there is no 100% garuntee that he would have been a better player.the chances are that he would have taken as many years to improve his game

I doubt it, most of the improvements have been mental. He's matured as a player and he'd have done this anyway with age.

 

[Neil Pickup]

You can't just exclude your favourite players bad performances because you like them. Nearly every player struggles at some point in their career, and if they don't they should be credited for being so consistent.

If you're measuring a player's peak, then consistency has nothing to do with it.

 

[Swervy]

You can't just exclude your favourite players bad performances because you like them. Nearly every player struggles at some point in their career, and if they don't they should be credited for being so consistent.

its not selectivly picking out a players best performances, its taking a players most productive chunk of his career to give an indication of their effectiveness when they were peaking, to eliminate things such as being brought into a team too early or due to inadequecies in a countries depth, playing test cricket long after the players powers had started to wane

 

[Scaly piscine]

if flintoffs fitness was not great and it was not flintoffs problem
who problem was that ??????

So if the England selectors decided to pick a cricket web XI to represent England whose fault is it gonna be when the team only beats Zimbabwe by 50 runs? Just to help your process of elimination - players that were picked played to expectations so it can't be their fault and there were better players around they could have picked...

 

[Swervy]

If you're measuring a player's peak, then consistency has nothing to do with it.

thats right...and I think when people are trying to figure out who is best at whatever,we all want to think of that player at peak performance,as that is a truer indication of a players talents