Greatest All-rounder if captaincy were to be included

[Burgey]

Keith Miller played in the VFL as well. Bloody freaks.

Denis Compton won an FA Cup with Arsenal didn't he? The great days of amateurism.. where great sportsmen didn't have to choose and could play both winter and summer games..

As for the OQ, well it would be Imran , Armstrong or Benaud I suppose. By all reports Benaud was a great, great captain.. intuitive and above all lucky.. One of his players once said he could "put his hand in a bucket of **** and pull out a handful of diamonds".

 

[smash84]

Denis Compton won an FA Cup with Arsenal didn't he? The great days of amateurism.. where great sportsmen didn't have to choose and could play both winter and summer games..

As for the OQ, well it would be Imran , Armstrong or Benaud I suppose. By all reports Benaud was a great, great captain.. intuitive and above all lucky.. One of his players once said he could "put his hand in a bucket of **** and pull out a handful of diamonds".

nice one .........

I too have read that Richie was a great captain. Incidentally Imran rated Ian Chappell very highly as a captain. Of course Chappell himself is not an allrounder.

 

[Son Of Coco]

Um no. An allrounder is someone who would be picked regardless of his proficiency in the other discipline. IË he would be picked as a batsman if he didn't bowl, and vice versa.

Right, so how does this make Dhoni an all-rounder?

An all-rounder has to be proficient enough at both disciplines to be at least serviceable to the team. Are you telling me Andrew McDonald isn't an all-rounder because he wouldn't be picked for Australia solely as a batsman or a bowler...but he has been as an all-rounder?

 

[Son Of Coco]

Then Shaun Pollock, Andrew Flintoff and Shane Watson are not allrounders, because they would not be chosen for certain disciplines if they lost the other.

Pollock would never have been picked as a specialist bat, and for much of Freddy's career, neither would he.

Watson would most definitely not be picked as a specialist bowler.

That's an extreme definition of allrounder. It's more the definition of an all-time great allrounder.

Yeah, exactly.

That's the definition of an all-time great all-rounder. Not your average all-rounder.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Likewise with Pollock, at no point could Kallis be seriously deemed a good enough bowler to be picked as a specialist. The number of wickets he has only shows how many games he's played (seeing as he takes less than 2 per game over his career)

Reckon that you could say that there are stages in his career that Kallis would have been picked as an outright bowler, if he didn't know that he was a right hand batsman. Just because he didn't keep up a workload doesn't mean that he couldn't have if he'd been a specialist.

 

[zaremba]

The fact that someone might have been a front-line bowler if he hadn't simultaneously pursued a career as a batsman doesn't mean that he was a front-line bowler, just that he might have been. Shaun Pollock is an example of a player whose talent might (IMO) have allowed him to become a specialist batsman had he devoted his full time and attention to it. But he didn't, so he wasn't.

I can't think of many all-rounders who would genuinely have been, at any given time, picked either on the basis of their actual (as opposed to potential) batting AND their actual bowling. Possibly Ian Botham in the last 70s/early 80s. Possibly Freddie in ODI cricket around 2004. Possibly Klusener in ODIs a few years before that? Possibly Brian McMillan in the mid-90s?

 

[tooextracool]

More like he never took the new ball because he was never one of the best 2 bowlers in the attack and if his batting average were in single figures he'd not even have played Tests.

Are you kidding me? If Kallis played as a full time bowler and bowled fully fit (pretty good chance of that happening if he wasnt batting in top order), he'd arguably be the 2nd best bowler in South Africa.

 

[tooextracool]

Nah, they're not.

All-rounders only being more than one discipline is something someone made up to include their favourite player in the category. An all-rounder is someone who performs the main disciplines of the game to a proficient level (ie: batting and bowling). Calling a keeper an 'all-rounder' sounds like something Mark Nicholas has done.

Think my definition of an all-rounder is anyone who can bat in the top 7 and also bowls on average more than 20 overs per test. I think that classification excludes people like Symonds, and rightfully so.

 

[smash84]

Are you kidding me? If Kallis played as a full time bowler and bowled fully fit (pretty good chance of that happening if he wasnt batting in top order), he'd arguably be the 2nd best bowler in South Africa.

Are you kidding me??? Do you think Kallis would have been a better bowler than Pollock or Donald??? At many points in his career even Klusener was better than Kallis. And of course we now have Steyn who is an absolute gem.

 

[marc71178]

Are you kidding me? If Kallis played as a full time bowler and bowled fully fit (pretty good chance of that happening if he wasnt batting in top order), he'd arguably be the 2nd best bowler in South Africa.

Pollock and Allan Donald say hi.

 

[tooextracool]

Are you kidding me??? Do you think Kallis would have been a better bowler than Pollock or Donald??? At many points in his career even Klusener was better than Kallis. And of course we now have Steyn who is an absolute gem.

I meant at the moment. He'd be the best bowler after Steyn. I'm fairly certain he would have been able to play as a specialist bowler for any South African side of the past 2 decades. Yes he averages 30, but his bowling has been affected by the fact that he puts in more effort and practice into his batting and therefore he's rarely been match fit while bowling.

 

[Furball]

At one stage Pollock would have been picked as a specialist bat.

One might argue that given his woeful bowling average Freddie would not have been picked as a specialist bowler.

Between 2004 and 2006 Flintoff would have made the England side on the basis of both disciplines. He was more of a genuine all rounder than either Pollock or Kallis, whose second suit never really elevated beyond being extremely useful.

 

[smash84]

Between 2004 and 2006 Flintoff would have made the England side on the basis of both disciplines. He was more of a genuine all rounder than either Pollock or Kallis, whose second suit never really elevated beyond being extremely useful.

From 2004 to 2006 Flintoff scored 2076 runs @ 37.76 and averaged just under 27 runs per wicket for his 144 wickets in 37 tests. Pretty decent stats for his peak. Although fairly low compared to the peaks of the great 80s allrounders (Kapil, Hadlee, Botham, and Imran).

Kallis when he was a decent bowler lets say in the 1990s then from 1996 till 1999 he played 32 tests scored 1849 runs @ 41.08 and 53 wickets @ 28.45 runs apiece.

I don't have the strike rate data but seems that Flintoff must be ahead by miles in terms of that. There is a huge difference in the number of wickets that they have taken

 

[smash84]

Between 2004 and 2006 Flintoff would have made the England side on the basis of both disciplines. He was more of a genuine all rounder than either Pollock or Kallis, whose second suit never really elevated beyond being extremely useful.

I wouldn't say that he was much better than Pollock though. If we take Pollock all rounder of the 1990s , between 1995-1999 Pollock played 38 matches scoring 1404 runs @ just under 32. His bowling was however very good in this period. In the 38 matches he took 161 wickets @ 20.45 apiece. Comfortably beating Flintoff in the bowling.

Actually his overall career stats are quite impressive too. Pollock finished with a batting average of 32.31 in 108 matches and scored 3781 runs.

His career bowling averageis 23.11 and he took 421 wickets in those 108 matches.

I think Pollock really is quite under rated as ankitj mentioned in one of his threads.

 

[weldone]

I can't think of many all-rounders who would genuinely have been, at any given time, picked either on the basis of their actual (as opposed to potential) batting AND their actual bowling. Possibly Ian Botham in the last 70s/early 80s. Possibly Freddie in ODI cricket around 2004. Possibly Klusener in ODIs a few years before that? Possibly Brian McMillan in the mid-90s?

Miller for some time, Sobers for some time, Kallis for some time in the very late '90s (just before Ntini came into picture clearly), Wilfred Rhodes for some time, Kapil in ODIs (in tests too for some time, I guess; not sure though about India's batting bench-strength back then), Imran too (when he was batting at his best, his bowling became weaker, but he surely was among their top 3 pace bowlers even then) ...etc.

And if we are including minnows, then Shakib for sure.

 

[zaremba]

Miller for some time, Sobers for some time, Kallis for some time in the very late '90s (just before Ntini came into picture clearly), Wilfred Rhodes for some time, Kapil in ODIs (in tests too for some time, I guess; not sure though about India's batting bench-strength back then), Imran too (when he was batting at his best, his bowling became weaker, but he surely was among their top 3 pace bowlers even then) ...etc.

And if we are including minnows, then Shakib for sure.

Vettori these days I suppose.
As to the others, it depends on the periods of overlap between good enough batting and good enough bowling which in many cases were brief. Miller and Sobers being more convincing examples than Kallis or Kapil or Rhodes to my mind. Imran is one to get the statsguru-botherers really agitated.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Denis Compton won an FA Cup with Arsenal didn't he? The great days of amateurism.. where great sportsmen didn't have to choose and could play both winter and summer games..

Indeed so. Won a championship medal with the mighty Gooners in 47/48 too.

 

[Prince EWS]

I'm actually going to throw it out there than Kallis might do so even now. South Africa have picked a myriad of third seamers in a short time since Ntini was dropped - if Kallis suddenly decided he wanted to bat nine and focus on his bowling, I'm pretty sure they'd pick him. His work-rate is limited because of his batting responsibility and age, but he's a better bowler than McLaren, Parnell, Lopsy etc at the moment IMO.

 

[Furball]

I wouldn't say that he was much better than Pollock though. If we take Pollock all rounder of the 1990s , between 1995-1999 Pollock played 38 matches scoring 1404 runs @ just under 32. His bowling was however very good in this period. In the 38 matches he took 161 wickets @ 20.45 apiece. Comfortably beating Flintoff in the bowling.

Actually his overall career stats are quite impressive too. Pollock finished with a batting average of 32.31 in 108 matches and scored 3781 runs.

His career bowling averageis 23.11 and he took 421 wickets in those 108 matches.

I think Pollock really is quite under rated as ankitj mentioned in one of his threads.

I'm not disputing that Pollock wasn't a better bowler than Flintoff. He was.

My point was that Pollock's batting never really elevated above "useful", likewise with Kallis' bowling. Whereas at his peak, Flintoff would have gotten into the England side on the basis of either discipline - at his peak he was more of a genuine all rounder than either Pollock or Kallis.

 

[Bloody Hell]

Keith Miller played in the VFL as well. Bloody freaks.

And played for the Big V vs SA, when it actually ment something.

Also won a fair few Sheffield Shields as NSW captain, during seasons when there were no tests played (ie against full strength state teams). From all reports was a pretty good captain and only missed the Aussie spot due to politics. (not only from Bradman.)