Who was the best allrounder after Sir Gary Sobers?

[adi B]

Kallis, any day. Infact I rate him higher than Sobers. My personal favorite might be Dravid and many others but Kallis is easily the best player to play the game!!!

+1

[adi B]

Jacque Kallis is a statistician delight, not a cricket fan's. I am yet to meet a cricket fan who ever gets up in the middle of the night to see Kallis bat, and batting is his stronger suit. A 5 wicket return every 50 or innings (260 innings bowled, 5 fifer)??? Greatest all-rounder my *****.

sour grapes ..

[maniac]

I am actually tempted to agree with Lurker for a change here,when he implies that Kallis is only a great as an Allrouner statistically...I mean obviously the general consensus is that he is already an ATG to play the game but in terms of what I interpret from the OP,the question is 'Is Kallis the 2nd best Allrounder ever to play the game:1st being Sobers' which I totally don't agree with just taking Allround statistics into perspective then this could be a flawed argument For eg;if you look at ODI's Then Afridi and Jayasuriya will sneak in as one of the greatest allrounders to play the format based on their records but do we regard them as that? Going back to the point I was making,if Sobers is considered as a benchmark than Kallis has a valid argument to stake the claim but as I said the benchmark for an allrounder should always be Botham,Kapil and Imran who were the greatest allrounders ever in terms of the responsibilities they shouldered. For this generation,Kallis is indeed the best allrounder of the past decade or so.

[Number]

Batting AR - Sobers - Kallis. Bowling AR - Keith Miller - Imran.

[Trichromatic]

For eg;if you look at ODI's Then Afridi and Jayasuriya will sneak in as one of the greatest allrounders to play the format based on their records but do we regard them as that?

If you don't regard Sanath as one of best all-rounders in ODIs then who else are in the list?

[Crookbond]

I am actually tempted to agree with Lurker for a change here,when he implies that Kallis is only a great as an Allrouner statistically...I mean obviously the general consensus is that he is already an ATG to play the game but in terms of what I interpret from the OP,the question is 'Is Kallis the 2nd best Allrounder ever to play the game:1st being Sobers' which I totally don't agree with just taking Allround statistics into perspective then this could be a flawed argument For eg;if you look at ODI's Then Afridi and Jayasuriya will sneak in as one of the greatest allrounders to play the format based on their records but do we regard them as that? Going back to the point I was making,if Sobers is considered as a benchmark than Kallis has a valid argument to stake the claim but as I said the benchmark for an allrounder should always be Botham,Kapil and Imran who were the greatest allrounders ever in terms of the responsibilities they shouldered. For this generation,Kallis is indeed the best allrounder of the past decade or so.

You can only do good with what you have. It is not Sobers fault that he did not share other responsibilities.

[namasteji1]

Ian Botham was **** as a batsman, don't compare him with Kallis.

[vvvslaxman]

Kallis is just an okay bowler. Primarily a batsman. 282 wickets in 158 matches.. seriously?

[maniac]

If you don't regard Sanath as one of best all-rounders in ODIs then who else are in the list?

Doesn't it go back to the whole point of argument here about Kallis being only a statistician delight? So let me ask you this Vibhash do you rate Santh's bowling ability highly?

[Trichromatic]

Doesn't it go back to the whole point of argument here about Kallis being only a statistician delight? So let me ask you this Vibhash do you rate Santh's bowling ability highly?

You may not rate Shakib very highly as player, but he can be rated as best player from Bangladesh. :winky: To answer your question directly - no I don't rate Sanath's bowling very highly, but very few players have been better than him as all-rounder in ODIs. There aren't many above him.

[Lurker]

I thought you were not a big fan of numbers. But regardless, till around '03-'04 Kallis was more than a decent bowler. On quite a few occasions with the likes of Donald, Pollock, and Ntini in the attack, he did better than them, so the Hick comparison hardly holds. He had good pace, a good outswinger, and a good bouncer. Certainly all the basic ingredients to be a more successful bowler than he turned out to be if he was not playing in such a strong attack and his batting was more important to the team. Wouldn't Kapil, Imran, and Botham be exposed if they were to bat in the top 4? All had the basic ingredients to be very good batsmen, but obviously their role as bowlers was more important and they were never required to bat in the top 4. Among batsmen with more than 5000 runs, Botham and Kapil would come pretty close to the bottom of the pile. And Imran doesn't even have 5000 test runs.

I don't quite think a Kapil or a Botham would be as exposed as a batsman on number 4 as Kallis would be purely as a bowler. Case in point. Purely as a batsman, Kapil Dev has an innings in Top 100 greatest innings list (Wisden) for both LOI & Test. For LOI it is 175* against Zimbabwe. For Test it is his century against Saffers in 90s. How many notable innings does Jacque Kallis has purely as a bowler? And please dont come back with a Donald-Pollock-Steyn saga again

[maniac]

You can only do good with what you have. It is not Sobers fault that he did not share other responsibilities.

The term responsibility might have been used vaguely by me here but let me try and expand my thought- Imran,Kapil,Botham-bowling allrounders Sobers,Kallis-batting allrounders Imran,Kapil and Botham were obviously the best bowlers in their teams hands down for most of their careers and at their peak allround poweress were the 2nd or 3rd best batsmen in their side too to go along with captaincy responsibility and played a major factor in Series and tournament victories for their respective sides with both bat and ball. Now lets look at Kallis and Sobers Were they the best batsmen in theirteam?-Hell yes Kallis was the 4th or 5th bowling option at best....was he a good 4th or 5th bowling option...ofcourse good is an understatement,he was great. Again as far as Sobers goes,WI had a pretty good-awesome bowling attack in Sobers's time too and I don't recollect ever hearing that Sobers was the 1st or 2nd best bowler in the team...I would love to be proved wrong though

[Lurker]

I am actually tempted to agree with Lurker for a change here,when he implies that Kallis is only a great as an Allrouner statistically...I mean obviously the general consensus is that he is already an ATG to play the game but in terms of what I interpret from the OP,the question is 'Is Kallis the 2nd best Allrounder ever to play the game:1st being Sobers' which I totally don't agree with just taking Allround statistics into perspective then this could be a flawed argument For eg;if you look at ODI's Then Afridi and Jayasuriya will sneak in as one of the greatest allrounders to play the format based on their records but do we regard them as that? Going back to the point I was making,if Sobers is considered as a benchmark than Kallis has a valid argument to stake the claim but as I said the benchmark for an allrounder should always be Botham,Kapil and Imran who were the greatest allrounders ever in terms of the responsibilities they shouldered. For this generation,Kallis is indeed the best allrounder of the past decade or so.

Some of that is down to the generation of course. I grew up watching 80s all-rounders so I have had a soft spot there. I agree. At the same time there are often players who while widely respected while playing somehow become larger than life when their career ends. Kallis to me is like that. Even in 90s I thought Chris Cairns was as good as Kallis, even better. Cairns would lead from the front and also smot sixes. More importantly, to me, he brought people in to watch the game. Personally I love players like Cairns, Richards, Kapil, Sehwag and perhaps thats my bias there. By the by Keith Miller should go on your list. He was not too different than Kapil Botham Imran. If anything he may trump them all considering he was a WW II fighter Pilot too, hence perhaps a "true" allrounder.

[Number]

Kallis is just an okay bowler. Primarily a batsman. 282 wickets in 158 matches.. seriously?

His bowling stats against better teams are pretty bad tbh. Very overrated as a bowler. Made merry against Zimboks and Bangla.

[Crookbond]

I don't quite think a Kapil or a Botham would be as exposed as a batsman on number 4 as Kallis would be purely as a bowler. Case in point. Purely as a batsman, Kapil Dev has an innings in Top 100 greatest innings list (Wisden) for both LOI & Test. For LOI it is 175* against Zimbabwe. For Test it is his century against Saffers in 90s. How many notable innings does Jacque Kallis has purely as a bowler? And please dont come back with a Donald-Pollock-Steyn saga again

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63805.html http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/64008.html http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/64041.html http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/323947.html

[Crookbond]

The term responsibility might have been used vaguely by me here but let me try and expand my thought- Imran,Kapil,Botham-bowling allrounders Sobers,Kallis-batting allrounders Imran,Kapil and Botham were obviously the best bowlers in their teams hands down for most of their careers and at their peak allround poweress were the 2nd or 3rd best batsmen in their side too to go along with captaincy responsibility and played a major factor in Series and tournament victories for their respective sides with both bat and ball. Now lets look at Kallis and Sobers Were they the best batsmen in theirteam?-Hell yes Kallis was the 4th or 5th bowling option at best....was he a good 4th or 5th bowling option...ofcourse good is an understatement,he was great. Again as far as Sobers goes,WI had a pretty good-awesome bowling attack in Sobers's time too and I don't recollect ever hearing that Sobers was the 1st or 2nd best bowler in the team...I would love to be proved wrong though

I think you have already drawn your conclusion and then you are making your comments. Here is what you said in summary - Imran, Kapil and Botham "at their peak" were the 2nd or 3rd best batsmen in their side. (This statement itself requires some qualification). You never said "at the peak" for Kallis as a bowler. Another point - just because Kallis is the 4th or 5th (actually it is more 3rd, 4th not 4th, 5th as you are making it out to be) option does not make him the 4th or 5th best bowler in the side. Just like Botham at batting at 6 or Kapil at 5 does not make them their 6th or 5th best of the side respectively.

[maniac]

You may not rate Shakib very highly as player, but he can be rated as best player from Bangladesh. :winky: To answer your question directly - no I don't rate Sanath's bowling very highly, but very few players have been better than him as all-rounder in ODIs. There aren't many above him.

Fine.....that adds to my point as I said Kallis is one of the best allrounders to play this game but using Sobers as a benchmark and rating Kallis as the 2nd best allrounder ever is an exaggeration. similarly,Sanath will be one of the and I quote one of the better allrounders in ODI's and dare I say even Afridi,but are they the benchmark for the greatest ODI allrounders ever? I rate Kapil as the greatest ODI Allrounder ever btw. also guys like Chris Cairns would definetely be rated higher than Sanath and Afridi in terms of Allround ability

[namasteji1]

Ian botham- 5200 runs in 161 innings at an average of 33, seriously? And forget about his ODI record, that is not good enough to be written here.

[The Outsider]

I don't quite think a Kapil or a Botham would be as exposed as a batsman on number 4 as Kallis would be purely as a bowler.

Kapil and Botham are dead last in batting averages of batsmen with more than 5000 runs along with Boucher: http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=batting_average;orderbyad=reverse;qualmin1=5000;qualval1=runs;size=100;template=results;type=batting On the other hand there are quite a few bowlers with worse averages than Kallis with more than 200 wickets: http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=bowling_average;orderbyad=reverse;qualmin2=200;qualval2=wickets;size=100;template=results;type=bowling Now I am not saying that Kallis is necessarily a better bowler than others in the list, but it's quite a stretch to state that Kallis would have struggled if he opened the bowling while Kapil and Botham would have flourished batting in the top 4.

Case in point. Purely as a batsman, Kapil Dev has an innings in Top 100 greatest innings list (Wisden) for both LOI & Test. For LOI it is 175* against Zimbabwe. For Test it is his century against Saffers in 90s. How many notable innings does Jacque Kallis has purely as a bowler? And please dont come back with a Donald-Pollock-Steyn saga again

Off the top of my head, I can recall him taking a big haul of wickets at Headingly a few years back. But Wisden rankings can only tell you so much anyways. Don't think Sobers had a top 100 bowling performance either while Azhar Mehmood makes an appearance in the top 10 of batting. Go figure.

[maniac]

I think you have already drawn your conclusion and then you are making your comments. Here is what you said in summary - Imran, Kapil and Botham "at their peak" were the 2nd or 3rd best batsmen in their side. (This statement itself requires some qualification). You never said "at the peak" for Kallis as a bowler. Another point - just because Kallis is the 4th or 5th (actually it is more 3rd, 4th not 4th, 5th as you are making it out to be) option does not make him the 4th or 5th best bowler in the side. Just like Botham at batting at 6 or Kapil at 5 does not make them their 6th or 5th best of the side respectively.

Peak doesn't mean a time when he was the best bowler in a match or a single series....I am referring to more of a phase in their career and the overall impact they had and how long that particular phase lasted. Afridi was one of the highest wicket takers in the worldcup but was he the No1 bowling option for Pak even during the worldcup?....and when I say No 1 doesn't mean the position he bowls in but as an option but statistically he is superior than some of the higher rated allrounders....so tdoesn't that say something.