The best All Rounder in cricket history

[Ben_Swann77]

Imran Khan is best Al rounder. Because he is good Batsman & Bowler & Good Fielder.

[Sooda]

On a slightly different way to do this, which may not necessarily be the 'right' way...and of course this is my take which youre all not going to agree with anyway Approximate rankings as bowlers: Hadlee, Imran, Kapil, Mankad, Sobers, Botham, Miller, Kallis, Grieg, And as Batsmen Sobers, Kallis, Grieg, Mankad, Imran, Kapil, Miller, Botham, Hadlee, WHich suggests Mankad was the most 'allrounder' of them all and the rest were bowlers or (in the case of Grieg, Sobers and Kallis )batsmen foremost. Does that make Mankad the best allrounder ever as Achilles says :D ? Sobers, Miller/Kallis were probably the best fielders by a distance.

[Sid]

Kallis

[Roshanrocks]

Ramesh Powar ... no one's more rounder than him :P

[hari504504]

Imran Khan is best Al rounder. Because he is good Batsman & Bowler & Good Fielder.

Agreed. Plus he was also a great captain - goes without saying considering he was successfull in captaining a Pak side which is always full of squabbles,in-fighting,hidden agendas etc Closest to him would pbly be Sobers from what I've read..but can't comment on Sobers as I've not seen him play (videos)

[achilles]

On a slightly different way to do this, which may not necessarily be the 'right' way...and of course this is my take which youre all not going to agree with anyway Approximate rankings as bowlers: Hadlee, Imran, Kapil, Mankad, Sobers, Botham, Miller, Kallis, Grieg, And as Batsmen Sobers, Kallis, Grieg, Mankad, Imran, Kapil, Miller, Botham, Hadlee, WHich suggests Mankad was the most 'allrounder' of them all and the rest were bowlers or (in the case of Grieg, Sobers and Kallis )batsmen foremost. Does that make Mankad the best allrounder ever as Achilles says :D ? Sobers, Miller/Kallis were probably the best fielders by a distance.

In my book, it does. In the books of others, they can have different names :icflove: And thanks for doing the "research" and saving me the effort :P

[Rajan]

Sir Gary. he epitomised the word-"all rounder" in every sense. according to one of the top contenders for this position,Keith Miller himself, Sir Gary is the greatest ever cricketer who stepped on to any cricket ground! if there is any poll, it may determine, #2 onwards... perhaps #2-Keith Miller #3- Imran #4- Botham #5- Kapil #6- Hadlee #7- V.Mankad # 8-Vettori #9-Kallis strictly by the ability to pick up multiple 5fors in bowling and 50+ in batting,allround catching and fielding abilities, in my humble opinion, in all weather conditions, including the touch subcontinental pitches.

[Guest Gunner]

Keith Miller.

[teacup]

A couple of observations: - Imran had couple of advantages over Kapil and Hadlee - Pak umpiring and good pace bowling partners. - Kallis, Sobers, Mankad, Miller and Grieg did not have the burden of being the bowling spearhead for their teams.

[ShahidAfridi]

Shahid Afridi

[Ganeshkumar]

I don't think there has ever been a perfect All-rounder. But,Sobers is the closest thing to it,if we look at statistics and also because of his natural talent. A perfect All-rounder is some-one who averages 40+ with bat and <30 with ball.(As yo see,there are none.) Gary Sobers' 34 avge. is ok;while his Batting average is spectacular. Keith Miller's numbers too look good;but I had observed that he has picked only 3 wickets/match,although his bowling average and strike-rate looks impressive. Richard Hadlee is,in my opinion,the greatest bowler ever,but does not qualify as an all-rounder. Among all the all-rounders,Gary Sobers stands out for one reason-he was the best in one form;he was the best batsman of his times,while Ian Botham,Imran Khan and Kapil Dev can't claim themselves to be the best bowler of their era.

[Ganeshkumar]

Ramesh Powar ... no one's more rounder than him :P

:hysterical:

[Nirvanam]

We did a new thread on this recently - http://www.indiancricketfans.com/showthread.php?t=249378&highlight=elite+all+rounders Copy-pasting it here:

Folks, I just did some queries on statsguru to figure out some real elite all rounders in Test cricket. I also computed the ARIndex = Batting Avg / Bowling Average. An ARI of 1.00 is a very good all-rounder...the higher the number the better the AR. I also computed a Normalized ARI, the normalization is done based on a factor called "Relative Frequency Factor". The RFF is a value between 0.8 to 1.2 and it addresses consistency over long periods. The logic to include RFF is that, an ARI score of 1.00 achieved over 100+ Tests should have slightly more value than an identical ARI achieved over 25 Tests. The range of 0.8 and 1.2 is decided based on certain assumptions (we can change the range) based on the minimum and maximum number of Tests played by the shortlisted players. the minimum number of Tests was 25, and maximum was 131. So if both of these players had an ARI of 1.00, then the Normalized ARI would be 0.8 and 1.2 respectively. The RFF for all other players would be between 0.8 and 1.2 with the player who played 88 Tests (25 + 53 or 131 - 53) having an RFF of 1.00. Finally, Normalized ARI = RFF * ARI Now the conditional queries on statsguru...I qualified the results to give a shortlist of players who attested to the following conditions - a. Batting Average > 30 b. Bowling Average < 30 c. Minimum Runs scored in career >= 1000 d. Minimum Wickets taken in career >= 50 e. Minimum 1 Wkt/Match (to avoid situations where say a player who has taken 60 wickets from 100 Tests makes the cut) The list of elite ARs (sorted based on rank) - Player Normalized ARI Imran Khan (Pak) 1.71 SM Pollock (SA) 1.56 KR Miller (Aus) 1.47 IT Botham (Eng) 1.29 N Kapil Dev (India) 1.26 Mushtaq Mohammad (Pak) 1.23 GA Faulkner (SA) 1.23 TL Goddard (SA) 1.13 CL Cairns (NZ) 1.07 MA Noble (Aus) 1.05 W Rhodes (Eng) 1.04 GE Gomez (WI) 0.90 I am not in the know on how to format a table in a post...otherwise I could've posted the entire table here. Pls help with the steps to follow on how to make a table inside a post and I'll edit it to include the whole table. Alternately, you can view the whole table here - http://tinyurl.com/22rhyyb ps: Does not include keeper-ARs

[Nirvanam]

This one does not include the RFF. And I've included only some specific AR's here. The ones that are not marked in bold can be considered as second tier AR's. This is subjective...the logic is that a proper AR must necessarily have a batting average > 30 and bowling average < 30. You can see that the greatest Test cricketer of them all, the Niazi is also the greatest all-rounder! The rankings are - 1.Imran, 2.Miller, 3.Botham, 4.Cairns jr, 5.Kapil, 6.Kallis, 7.Sobers, 8.Hadlee , 9.Irfan, 10.Flintoff, 11.Wasim-Shakib, 13.Vettori, 14.Vaas Quite decent rankings I guess. Name : Bat-Avg : Bowl-Avg : ARI Imran : 37.69 : 22.81 : 1.65 Kapil : 31.05 : 29.64 : 1.05 Botham : 33.54 : 28.40 : 1.18 Hadlee : 27.16 : 22.29 : 1.22 Wasim : 22.64 : 23.62 : 0.96 Cairns jr : 33.53 : 29.40 : 1.14 Kallis : 55.83 : 31.68 : 1.76 Vettori : 30.58 : 33.75 : 0.91 Vaas : 24.32 : 29.58 : 0.82 Shakib : 31.02 : 32.13 : 0.96 Flintoff : 31.77 : 32.78 : 0.97 Irtan : 31.57 : 32.26 : 0.98 Sobers : 57.78 : 34.03 : 1.70 Miller : 36.97 : 22.97 : 1.61

[The Outsider]

Keith Miller's numbers too look good;but I had observed that he has picked only 3 wickets/match,although his bowling average and strike-rate looks impressive.

Keith Miller's low wickets to match ratio is due to the fact that he sustained a back injury during World War II and as a result was not able to bowl long spells. He was primarily used in 5-6 over spells, which was very much on the low side during those times. He bowled only around 30 overs per match on average, whereas Lindwall, his opening partner, bowled around 40. I think as a natural talent Miller was as good as Sobers. However, when it comes to translating the performance on the field (and yeah Miller was severely handicapped by his war injury) Sobers really towers above the playing field. Another facet is that some of Sobers' best performances are not included in his test match statistics. There were two World XI vs. England and Australia series played between 1970 and 1972 and Sobers was the top scorer in both of them and also the top wicket taker in the the series against England. The most complete cricketer to have ever played the game.

[Cricket lover]

Imran Khan

[thongale]

Does Alan Davidson ring a bell for you all? Batting Avg: 24.6 Bowling Avg: 20.5 off 44 matches. RFF would be some where 0.8 + 19/88 = 1.016, So ARI = 24.6 / 20.5 * 1.016 = 1.22 Easily better than Kapil, Botham and Cairns i my calculation os correct and on par with Hadlee

[King Tendulkar]

Sobers v Kallis. I used to think Sobers is untouchable. But now I think Kallis has over taken him!

[Nirvanam]

Sobers v Kallis. I used to think Sobers is untouchable. But now I think Kallis has over taken him!

I feel Kallis is not as great an a-r as he is made out to be. He is a batsman without his batting skills he won't make it to the XI. I'd consider a great a-r as a player who could have made it to the XI on either his batting or bowling ability at some stage in his career (not necessarily both coinciding...that is truly very rare). With Botham, Kapil, Carins, Imran, Sobers, Miller, etc there were at least a period of 1 year in their careers where they could have made it to the 11 just based on their 'weaker' skill.

[Nirvanam]

Does Alan Davidson ring a bell for you all? Batting Avg: 24.6 Bowling Avg: 20.5 off 44 matches. RFF would be some where 0.8 + 19/88 = 1.016, So ARI = 24.6 / 20.5 * 1.016 = 1.22 Easily better than Kapil, Botham and Cairns i my calculation os correct and on par with Hadlee

RFF would be slightly less than 1. For 25 Tests it is 0.8 and 88 Tests it is 1.0, so for 44 Tests it will be between 0.85 and 0.90 (47 Tests). Let's say 0.88. So his Normalized ARI = RFF * ARI = 0.88 * 24.6/20.5 = 0.88 * 1.2 = 1.056 But main thing is that he does not make the original cut-off of >= 30 batting average. Others have suggested a modification for one-dept-heavy a-r's...I should work on that though grrrr!