Sanz, I think you need to look up the definition of an all-rounder.
Dont worry I know the definition of all rounder. Bhupinder said "you can't argue that he'd have made the WI side as a bowler alone because he was pretty average.", which is incorrect because Sobers did make to the team mainly as a bowler. Whether he did well in his first few matches is not up for discussion.
Check the stats, whenever WI won, Sobers' bowling had a lot to do with it. That's precisely 1/3 of his games averaging 25 and striking 66 which is very good for his time. Then in a lot of those games he score a lot of runs too, which is why he is rated so highly as an all-rounder. In fact, you can quite easily make the claim that Sobers was more all-rounder than Imran as he performed with both bat and ball more often.If he was just a bowler,he wouldn't have been able to play much considering he took just 31 wickets in his first 30 matches @ an average of 50.He managed to play that many matches in the back of his superb batting,not bowling.I highly doun\bt he would've been able to play more than 10 tests if he was just a bowler.And @ Ramadhin hardly better than Sobers:
All I'm saying is that Sobers might have started his career as a bowler but wouldn't have been to maintain his place because of his crap bowling if he had not improved his batting.If batsmen like Haroon Rashid & Rameez Raja could make the side then I don't see any reason how Imran wouldn't have.Imran played as a specialist batsman in the side in early 1980s when he had been advised by the doctors not to bowl because of some injury(I think it was a true or three year period).
Its highly laughable to say that Sobers was a good bowler & more rounded player than Imran.Imran being miles ahead of Qadir,Sarfaraz,Qasim(who played with Imran for most of his career until Akram became a regular in 86/87),Imran contributed more to Pakistan victories with ball & ocassionally with the bat than Sobers did for WI as allrounder.Imran was a better match winner than Sobers was.Sobers might have made 100 runs & taken 5 wickets 3 times more than Imran did but overall Imran was more consistent.They were both great allrounders ,I respect them & rate them very highly but for me Imran,Miller & Botham would always be ahead of Sobers.Sobers was a better overall cricketer Miller & Botham but he was not a better allrounder than them.
I think Unattainableguy has made a fairly valid point there.
Why is it? Sobers' batting is better than Imran's bowling IMO and his bowling did his team more good and more often than Imran's batting. And again: he did it in the same time, same game. Not ball brilliantly for one period of his career and then not ball at all and bat well.
If Sobers is one of the greatest batsmen ever then Imran is also one of the greatest bowlers ever.Its not like you are comparing Allan Border to Sobers.
No, I wouldn't say Imran's bowling is as good as Sobers' batting. I'd say Sobers is probably the 2nd best batsman of all time whilst Imran can plausibly be left out of the greatest 10 bowlers.
But I am.
I'm not either. Sobers was quite possibly the second (and in my opinion third, after Bradman and Hobbs) best batsman of all time.
Maybe not, but it's not a million miles off. Sobers is unquestionably, to me, in a top-ten all-time batsmen pantheon, and equally Imran in a top-ten all-time seam-bowlers pantheon.
If you take seam-bowlers (ie, excluding Barnes who was a freak) I'd say that while Imran couldn't unequivocally be called a top-five 20th-century bowler, he'd be better than McGrath and a damn decent shot at being better than Ambrose too.
that proves nothing.
Leaving Imran out of top 10 bowlers would be just like leaving Hobbs,V.Richards,Lara etc out of top 10 batsmen.V.Richards,Hobbs,Hutton,Lara were all better batsmen than Sobers so Sobers might be one of the greatest batsmen ever but he's not a clear number 2.
Imran was better bowler than all of them.Hadlee & Marshall follow him closely while others are marginally behind.
IMO,Viv Richards is the 2nd greatest batsman ever.
