You could argue we never truly saw Bond's class for enough time to make a proper judgement because of his injury woes. There are gaps in his record for both countries he never toured and teams he never played or barely played which will never be filled. Boult could assemble a good record against everyone.
Same with McCullum, but to a lesser extent. He was cut down in his prime but we can only judge him based on what we know.
I'm pretty confident Bond is both more talented and skilled than Boult, and had he played a full career he would have a world class or even all time great record. Likewise if McCullum played a full career as a keeper he would make our all time side at a leisurely stroll despite the class of Smith and Parore with the gloves. McCullum's current level of batting paired with his world class glovework would be an ominous prospect.
But if you were to take a more results and longevity oriented approach, looking only at hard proof then in 20 years time I can see the likes of Bond and Cowie falling by the wayside in favour of bowlers with world class records achieved over many tests, even if those future CWers suspect Bond and Cowie might have had more to work with as pure prospects.
I guess personally I'm putting this exercise out there because I'm dubious our all time team is often dominated by guys who played sod all tests. I know for early players it was unavoidable, and Cowie played all the tests New Zealand played in his time and they spanned a significant period, but I don't like having to Barry Richards it too much. I think we sometimes launch on these mysterious players because we like the idea of them more than we like the reality of Mark Richardson or Richard Collinge, who were world class players but not stand outs even in their own era.
I'm sure Donnelly was every bit as good as Ross Taylor. He might even have been Crowe's equal, but as of the West Indies summer tour I've been picking Taylor every time. He has the talent, the skill and the record to deserve recognition ahead of a mysterious talent who was probably brilliant but simply didn't play enough.
I think if Southee, Boult or whoever put together a classy career I'll look at Cowie and Bond in the same way - genius but not with us for long enough. I do understand why people pick players with short test careers though - we don't have many options so we need to get whoever we think is the best in the team, so if the selector isn't too hung up on how complete a player's record is they're going to trust their eye more than statsguru. It's a fair method - we do it with keepers all the time - I just wonder sometimes if we're going to take it too far.
At the moment it doesn't matter because we don't have much depth in a lot of positions. Who outside Turner, Dempster, Sutcliffe, Wright and Richardson really deserves to open the batting for example? But one day it will hopefully change.
