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Playing Selector: Top five test all rounders ever

Choose the top five test allrounders of all time

  • Total voters
    49
Silver Silva

Silver Silva

International Regular
Ive gone with Wilfred Rhodes , Imran Khan , Garry Sobers , Ian Botham and Jacques Kallis ..

Rhodes for longevity from the amateur era
Sobers for sheer brilliance and unique
flexibility
Botham the greatest early bloomer all rounder
Imran Khan the greatest late bloomer all rounder
Jacques Kallis for reliability over a long period of time.
 
R

rtramdas

U19 12th Man
Kapil seems way under rated in general . A batsman with around 82 batting str: when even Viv Richards was only striking at 70, with several back to the wall innings, with a towering series in WI(GOAT team) ..... a bowler who averaged 29.65 against all odds like longevity , weak support bowling unit , heavy work load etc etc ... A first class all round fielder & a safe catcher ....
 
R

rtramdas

U19 12th Man
rtramdas said:
Kapil seems way under rated in general . A batsman with around 82 batting str: when even Viv Richards was only striking at 70, with several back to the wall innings, with a towering series in WI(GOAT team) ..... a bowler who averaged 29.65 against all odds like longevity , weak support bowling unit , heavy work load etc etc ... A first class all round fielder & a safe catcher ....
Click to expand...
To put it in context , to score 5248 runs @ 82 str when King Viv scored 8540 runs @70 is some achievement .
 
Burgey

Burgey

Request Your Custom Title Now!
rtramdas said:
Kapil seems way under rated in general . A batsman with around 82 batting str: when even Viv Richards was only striking at 70, with several back to the wall innings, with a towering series in WI(GOAT team) ..... a bowler who averaged 29.65 against all odds like longevity , weak support bowling unit , heavy work load etc etc ... A first class all round fielder & a safe catcher ....
Click to expand...
Yeah I genuinely think if Kapil averaged either a smidge higher with the bat or a touch lower with the ball he'd be regarded higher in ATG comparisons, even a factor of a couple of runs either way. Genuinely a brilliant cricketer who could do it all. Agree he gets overlooked in ATG discussions more than he should. The bloke was a just genuinely great player, especially bowling seam up for India in that era.
 
Coronis

Coronis

International Coach
Burgey said:
Yeah I genuinely think if Kapil averaged either a smidge higher with the bat or a touch lower with the ball he'd be regarded higher in ATG comparisons, even a factor of a couple of runs either way. Genuinely a brilliant cricketer who could do it all. Agree he gets overlooked in ATG discussions more than he should. The bloke was a just genuinely great player, especially bowling seam up for India in that era.
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I think if he did better outside of India he’d be regarded higher.
 
bagapath

bagapath

International Captain
At the moment, with 36 votes in. the clear leaders are:

Sobers - 34
Imran - 30
Miller - 27
Kallis - 22
Botham - 18

Not surprised. In fact I voted for the same five. But I am trying to understand whether this is a reflection of how we value their individual talents or is it also mixed with what type of all rounder - batting/ bowling - we believe they are?

For example, Why is Miller rated above Botham? Do we like Miller's superior batting average ignoring the low WPM?

Or why is Sobers ranked way above Kallis when their numbers are alike? Is it to do with their playing styles - aggressive versus dour? Or is it assumed that Sobers is far a better bowler?
 
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R

rtramdas

U19 12th Man
Burgey said:
Yeah I genuinely think if Kapil averaged either a smidge higher with the bat or a touch lower with the ball he'd be regarded higher in ATG comparisons, even a factor of a couple of runs either way. Genuinely a brilliant cricketer who could do it all. Agree he gets overlooked in ATG discussions more than he should. The bloke was a just genuinely great player, especially bowling seam up for India in that era.
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the longer you play, the lower your average gets in general , be it in batting or bowling. Rare exceptions might be there though. Sachin, Ponting, Viv, Kohli, S . Smith and a lot of others have gone thru this. It should be noted that Kapil averaged 28.87 in bowling after first 100 tests in which he bowled 21000 balls. This 21000 count is lot more than what Imran bowled in his career.
Another thing is the bowling support strength. For instance bowling support strength of Botham was 31.53. Means , on the average Botham bowled along with 3 fellow bowlers in general who averaged 31.53 each in all his tests . For Kapil it was 38.80 after his first 21823 balls(Botham has 21815 in his entire career). See the difference.... 31.53 against 38.80.

Similarly there are quite a few adversities against which Kapil achieved his averages.

Wr.t batting, several top tier batsmen were striking at early 40s in Kapil's period. It was there that Viv stood out by far from the group striking at 70. That's one of the vital reasons as to why Viv is regarded so higher as a batsman. Kapil had almost 82. The likes of Sehwag, Gilchrist,Kapil who are having str: of 80+ were impact batsmen who deserve lot more weightage than their plain average provides



With out taking these contexts into account , I don't thing there is much sense in ranking players based on plain averages.

That's exactly the reasons as to why I regard Kapil so highly.
 
capt_Luffy

capt_Luffy

International Captain
I genuinely think it should had been a top 7; as in Top 5 almost 4 (even arguably all 5) players are too tough to remove.
Could had also added Mike Procter as an option, would had been interesting.
Also, the fact that Kapil has fewer votes than Flintoff is pure crap.....
 
capt_Luffy

capt_Luffy

International Captain
Okay, here's my attempt to rank all of them:
1. Garry Sobers
2. Imran Khan
3. Keith Miller
4. Jacques Kallis
5. Ian Botham
6. Wilfred Rhodes
7. Kapil Dev
8. Richard Hadlee
9. Shaun Pollock
10. Aubrey Faulkner
11. Ravindra Jadeja
12. Shakib Al Hasan
13. Frank Woolley
14. Monty Noble
15. Ben Stokes
16. Vinoo Mankad
17. Tony Greig
18. Chris Cairns
19. Wally Hammond
20. Ravichandran Ashwin
21. Richie Benaud
22. Jack Gregory
23. Warwick Armstrong
24. Mushtaq Mohammad
25. Brian McMillan
26. Maurice Tate
27. Andrew Flintoff
28. Ray Lindwall
29. Trevor Bailey
30. Wasim Akram
31. Heath Streak
32. Sanath Jayasuriya
33. Chris Woakes

Some other players I would rank above certain others:
Learie Constantine, Jason Holder, Collie Smith, Gerry Gomez, Allan Davidson, Charlie MaCartney, Trevor Goddard (the most notable exception), Mike Procter (the best cricketer to be left out), Eddie Barlow, Jimmy Sinclair, W G Grace (the player about whom you could create the strongest argument to be in Top 5), Billy Barnes, Allan Steel, George Hirst, Ted Dexter, Stanley Jackson, Gubby Allen, Ray Illingworth, Intikhab Alam, John Richard Reid, Daniel Vettori (most notable modern exception), Bruce Taylor, Colin de Grandhomme, Chamunda Vaas, Sikander Raza.
 
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Red_Ink_Squid

Red_Ink_Squid

Global Moderator
capt_Luffy said:
Okay, here's my attempt to rank all of them:
1. Garry Sobers
2. Imran Khan
3. Keith Miller
4. Jacques Kallis
5. Ian Botham
6. Wilfred Rhodes
7. Kapil Dev
8. Richard Hadlee
9. Shaun Pollock
10. Aubrey Faulkner
11. Ravindra Jadeja
12. Shakib Al Hasan
13. Frank Woolley
14. Monty Noble
15. Ben Stokes
16. Vinoo Mankad
17. Tony Greig
18. Chris Cairns
19. Wally Hammond
20. Ravichandran Ashwin
21. Richie Benaud
22. Jack Gregory
23. Warwick Armstrong
24. Mushtaq Mohammad
25. Brian McMillan
26. Maurice Tate
27. Andrew Flintoff
28. Ray Lindwall
29. Trevor Bailey
30. Wasim Akram
31. Heath Streak
32. Sanath Jayasuriya
33. Chris Woakes

Some other players I would rank above certain others:
Learie Constantine, Jason Holder, Collie Smith, Gerry Gomez, Allan Davidson, Charlie McCartney, Trevor Goddard (the most notable exception), Mike Procter (the best cricketer to be left out), Eddie Barlow, Jimmy Sinclair, W G Grace (the player about whom you could create the strongest argument to be in Top 5), Billy Barnes, Allan Steel, George Hirst, Ted Dexter, Stanley Jackson, Gubby Allen, Ray Illingworth, Intikhab Alam, John Richard Reid, Daniel Vettori (most notable modern exception), Bruce Taylor, Colin de Grandhomme, Chamunda Vaas, Sikander Raza.
Click to expand...
This was in ascending order of quality, right?
 
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