****OFFICIAL**** Imran Khan vs Botham Debate Thread

[Hurst_Hattrick]

And to put Kapil above Botham is not just wrong so wrong my head is about to explode.

.

How do you figure ?

 

[Goughy]

How do you figure ?

Is that a serious question? Kapil has little to put him in the same class as Botham. I fact I have always viewed him as a discount version of Botham. He did what Botham did just not nearly as good.

He was a very good player but as Ive said before Botham for a period was the greatest allrounder the world has ever seen. Kapil was a good bowler and a decent batsman.

 

[Hurst_Hattrick]

Is that a serious question? Kapil has little to put him in the same class as Botham. I fact I have always viewed him as a discount version of Botham. He did what Botham did just not nearly as good.

He was a very good player but as Ive said before Botham for a period was the greatest allrounder the world has ever seen. Kapil was a good bowler and a decent batsman.

I suppose it was a fluke that Kapil just happened to have the same bowling average as Botham despite having to carry his team on his shoulders in more unresponsive conditions ?

 

[Jono]

Good call, its amazing how little respect Kapil's bowling gets from people outside of India. Its funny that people can denigrate Indian batsman for playing on 'batsman friendly wickets', yet that same theory doesn't work when it comes to Indian bowlers bowling tirelessly on those wickets.

I do rate Botham and Imran overall better allrounders than Kapil, but to claim Kapil Dev was a 'discount' version of Botham is ridiculous and very disrespectful to one of the greatest Indian cricketers ever. I know who I'd want playing for my team when it comes to their complete career, someone that actually gave two hoots. Kapil Dev was a workhorse, and kept going and going. Can't say the same about Botham, who was either unbelievably awesome or you wouldn't even notice he was on the field, other than his macho bravado.

 

[bagapath]

I have to agree that hadlee and, in second position, imran were better bowlers than botham and kapil. but as a batsman hadlee was never in the league of the other three. with only two centuries and an average below 30, he doesn't figure in my list of great all-rounders although he would be among my first three choices to open any bowling attack.

of the remaining three, while botham and kapil had more flair with the bat, imran applied himself better (not that he didn't have flair, but just a little less compared to the other two). as a batsman, botham was certainly better than the other two scoring more centuries - inculding 200+ scores, more fifties and more knocks that turned tests around.

the race is always between imran and botham. though kapil's stats are not that far below botham's, he doesn't enter the fray since i cant think of a period in which he dominated the world with the bat and ball though he had some great moments spread throughout his career.

imran and botham on the other hand were beyond the "very good" league. winning matches (and winning personal battles with other champion cricketers within those matches) with scorching spells and match turning knocks. imran put the fear of god into batsmen and dominated the best of bowlers when he batted. botham put the fear of god into bowlers and got great batsmen out consistently. how can you separate the two of them?

 

[Jono]

The biggest difference between the two is that Imran was firing on at least one of his cylinders (batting or bowling) throughout his career, and Botham was either dominating in all facets or backpedalling alarmingly.

Also, what Botham contributed through his fielding, Imran did likewise through his captaincy.

Yep agree with that.

In terms of this debate, Imran was the far far better bowler when taking into account their whole career IMO. Imran can challenge for the 10-15 greatest fast bowlers of all time, whereas Botham wouldn't come too close IMO. Particularly when you take into account the pitches Imran toiled on, i.e unresponsive pitches that fast bowlers hated bowling on. Mind you that's not to be disrespectful of Botham, who is an all-time great and probably overall the better 'allrounder' in their peak. Problem is that peak didn't last too long.

Also I would say that Hadlee wasn't as much as an allrounder as much as one of the greatest bowlers ever who could also bat quite well.

 

[Top_Cat]

They were both good.

That's my rationale and I'm sticking with it.

 

[GIMH]

They were both good.

That's my rationale and I'm sticking with it.

Splinters

 

[SJS]

Its a fascinating debate - comp[aring these four all rounders. Its difficult tocompare all rounders anyway because one may be better than the other in one discipline and vice versa. But if I had to compare sparate disciplines I would rank them as :

Batting :
Botham far above the others and Hadlee far below.
Imran and Kapil come in the middle with Kapil more gifted but impetuous and Imran more committed to his batting.

Bowling :
Imran and Hadlee much above the other two. I find it difficult to split between them. I have seen Imran bowl some tremendous stuff when it looked as if this was truly unplayable stuff. On the other hand, Hadlee was enormously controlled with line, length and bothway movement and for a much longer period. While Imran looked umplayable during a couple of series, Hadlee looked as if he would never be 'collared' for most of his later career. I would put them as equals because i dont know how to split them.

Of the other two, Botham was faster and bowled some great stuff for half his career. For most of the other half he got wickets with 'bluff and bluster'. I have seen him getting wickets when he should have been thrashed. Kapil was a warhorse with great control and it is very valid that he bowled half his stuff on the Indian wickets.. If he was a bit quicker he would have graduated to the top category. I would rank Kapil better than Botham by a tiny bit if we take the entire careers.

Fielding :
Botham and Kapil were better fielders than the other two.

Botham was a brilliant fielder all through his career and must rank as number one amongst them.

Kapil came to light as a brilliant fielder only after he himself started leading the side and took on positions close to the wicket on a regular basis. Kapil could field anywhere wiyth great facility. He comes a close second. He had a fantastic throwing arm and threw flat and straight from the boundary and it never flagged till the end of his long career.

Imran and Hadlee were decent fielders without being really standing out as star fielders. They were safe and Imran was pretty safe close to the wickets in tha later part of his career. I would rank Imran above Hadlee but both of them in a lower league than the other two.

As All rounders
Impossible to split as I said before but I am clear that Hadlee is out of the race. He was basically a great bowler who was a decent lower order batsman.

Of the others if I had to rank them, I would rank Botham as clear number one with Kapil and Imran very close.

I would chose Kapil for one dayers and Imran for tests if I was a selector and had to decide on an all rounder between them.

PS : None of what I have said above has anything to do with their relative stats which may or may not 'tell' something different.

PPS : Its a personal opinion

 

[Hurst_Hattrick]

Here are some figures for Botham and Kaps against the two best teams of their times:

Against the best opponents they could ever face, the West Indies, Kapil shines, while Botham is well, less than perfect.

Kapil vs WI: 25 1079 126* 30.82 3 4 89 9/83 24.89 4x5w

Botham vs WI: 20 792 81 21.40 0 4 61 8/103 35.18 3x5w

Against the 'Convicts', as Botham put it, they come out with equal honours.

Kapil vs Aus: 20 687 119 26.42 1 3 79 8/106 25.35 7x5w

Botham vs Aus: 36 1673 149* 29.35 4 6 148 6/78 27.65 9x5w

 

[Goughy]

Im not quite sure what those stats prove.

If they are supposed to show Kapil was the better player because his stats were better than Bothams against WI,I could easily throw back that Kapils stats are terrible against New Zealand compared to Bothams and as he could not perform against a supposed 'weaker' nation then he is clearly poorer. I won't but I could.

 

[Goughy]

A note on Bothams acheivements

The fastest in the history of Test cricket (in terms of matches) to achieve the "doubles" of-
1,000 runs and 100 wickets
2,000 runs and 200 wickets
3,000 runs and 300 wickets.

The first player to score a century and take 10 wickets in the same Test match.

He scored a century and took 5 wickets in an innings in the same Test match on 5 occasions; no-one else has managed this feat more than twice. Imran has done it once, Kapil and Hadlee never did.

He also scored 300 runs and took 15 wkts in a series 3 times, Kapil did it twice, Hadlee once and Imran never did (though they played a number of shorter series so this one is not as impressive as the others but you cannot take away the fact that he acheived it)

What you must understand about Botham is that his averages do not tell the story. He was fantastic and then mediocre. Im am choosing to remember him is the early phase of his career before the injuries and during that time Kapil is not comparable. If you are talking about, lets say, 1988 then you may have a point.

 

[silentstriker]

Is that a serious question? Kapil has little to put him in the same class as Botham. I fact I have always viewed him as a discount version of Botham. He did what Botham did just not nearly as good.

He was a very good player but as Ive said before Botham for a period was the greatest allrounder the world has ever seen. Kapil was a good bowler and a decent batsman.

DIscount version of Botham? Please. I rate Botham as a better all rounder, but this discount business is BS. People forget that he had an economy of 3.71 in ODI's, and was one of the best death bowlers...ever.

 

[Goughy]

DIscount version of Botham? Please. I rate Botham as a better all rounder, but this discount business is BS. People forget that he had an economy of 3.71 in ODI's, and was one of the best death bowlers...ever.

Fair enough, You must understand that ODIs do not even come into my head when people talk about these things. I do not disagree that Kapil was an excellent ODI player, its just not a form of cricket I pay much attention to.

 

[Hurst_Hattrick]

Im not quite sure what those stats prove.

If they are supposed to show Kapil was the better player because his stats were better than Bothams against WI,I could easily throw back that Kapils stats are terrible against New Zealand compared to Bothams and as he could not perform against a supposed 'weaker' nation then he is clearly poorer. I won't but I could.

Those stats show how a 'discount version' played the World Test Champions better than the supposedly high quality version.

And better performances by a player against a stronger nation definitely carry more weight than better performances against a poorer nation. Which is the same reason why one cannot use, say, Muralitharan's superior record against Zimbabwe and Balngladesh as 'proof' of his being better than Shane Warne. People pay less weightage to performances against poorer nations, but definitely a lot of weightage to performances against the strongest ones.

And if you're going to declare someone the greatest allrounder of his time by narrowing your perspective to a specific convenient time frame, please qualify your conclusions with mention of that time frame specifically, rather than make it seem as if both the highs and lows have been factored in. There is a lot of difference between "Botham was the best all rounder in his prime." and "Botham was the best. Period. The other guy ? Bah! Discount version!!"

 

[Goughy]

And if you're going to declare someone the greatest allrounder of his time by narrowing your perspective to a specific convenient time frame, please qualify your conclusions with mention of that time frame specifically, rather than make it seem as if both the highs and lows have been factored in. There is a lot of difference between "Botham was the best all rounder in his prime." and "Botham was the best. Period. The other guy ? Bah! Discount version!!"

I refer you to my previous posts. If you are going to state something and accuse me of not doing something please at least read what has been written before.

I think you will find I have repeatedly talked about Botham having different phases of his career, but why would you bother to read when you can just rant.

For a 5-6 year period Botham was the most destructive allrounder ever to have walked on the planet.

If the question was Who was the best allrounder (batting and bowling combined) at the height of their allround career then the answer in Botham.

What you must understand about Botham is that his averages do not tell the story. He was fantastic and then mediocre. Im am choosing to remember him is the early phase of his career before the injuries and during that time Kapil is not comparable. If you are talking about, lets say, 1988 then you may have a point.

He was a very good player but as Ive said before Botham for a period was the greatest allrounder the world has ever seen. Kapil was a good bowler and a decent batsman.

Below are the stats for what I believe are the best 20 match periods for each player in their career.

How can you say Imran was a better batsman than Botham? Imran had 1 century in his first 45 Tests, Botham had 3 in his first 7 Tests.

It think virtually everything I have mentioned has revolved around Botham and a certain period or timeframe so Ive no idea what you are talking about.

 

[Hurst_Hattrick]

I refer you to my previous posts. If you are going to state something and accuse me of not doing something please at least read what has been written before.

I think you will find I have repeatedly talked about Botham having different phases of his career, but why would you bother to read when you can just rant.














It think virtually everything I have mentioned has revolved around Botham and a certain period or timeframe so Ive no idea what you are talking about.

What I am talking about is that being a better all-rounder over a selective 5-6 year period does not equate to being the better all-rounder over an entire career.

And sorry if you feel it has all been a rant. I suppose labelling one of two comparative players as a discount version of the other must be some norm Iam blissfully ignorant of ?

 

[Goughy]

And sorry if you feel it has all been a rant.

Ill take that as an apology for the accusation that I did not qualify my statements about Botham when I clearly and obviously did.

I forgive you.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

One statistic I find interesting about Botham, that I quoted in another thread on this subject some time ago, is the record of taking five wickets in an innings and scoring a century in the same test. It really shows how he was capable of being a matchwinner with both bat and ball at his peak, which is something I don't think you can say about Imran, as he was never really a matchwinner with the bat. I'll just quote the post rather and writing it out again.

Just to add another stat in Botham's favour, from this weeks Ask Steven on cricinfo about taking a 5-fer and scoring a hundred in the same test.

It's been done 26 times in tests. The great Sobers did it twice, in 1962 and 1966. Keith Miller did it once, as did Mankad and Imran Khan. Jacques Kallis has managed it two times to date (once against Bangladesh), and Mushtaq Mohammad of Pakistan did it twice as well, one of those times was a double hundred, and the other time against a very impressive West Indies outfit. Some other famous all-rounders to pull it off on one occasion are Jack Gregory, Richie Benaud, Polly Umrigar, Tony Greig and Wasim Akram. Some of the lesser lights to also manage it on one occasion are Jimmy Sinclair, Aubrey Faulkner, Charles Kelleway, Denis Atkinson, Collie Smith and Paul Strang. Many big names never managed it, such as Richard Hadlee, Kapil Dev, Shaun Pollock and so on.

So, how many times did Ian Botham do it? FIVE. He did it twice in 1978, against New Zealand and Pakistan, in 1980 against India and 1981 against Australia in two amazing performances, and then in 1984 he did it one final time against New Zealand, as he began to decline seriously as a player.

Note that four of the five occasions were in the 78-81 period before he really fell away as a player, which really makes it all the more remarkable. Most all-rounders would be happy to take four five-fers and score four centuries in a four year period overall, let alone do both in the same match four times.

 

[GIMH]

Makes a youngster like me wish he had seen Botham at his peak, rather than growing up with him as the geezer off the Shredded Wheat adverts.