Who was the best allrounder after Sir Gary Sobers?

[Lurker]

Oops, I linked the wrong scorecard: http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/64041.html

:hysterical::hysterical: I seriously had to re-read the first scorecard, wondering what am I missing. Double mehnat karwaate ho tum log bhai aise hi...

Just to clarify, I am not saying Kallis is the second best all rounder ever. However, there is not much to choose between the likes of Kallis, Imran, Kapil, Botham, Miller. If Kallis is not some top notch bowler, then neither were Kapil and Botham some top notch batsmen. In fact, Kallis' batting would put him in the top 5 or so batsmen of his generation, but neither Kapil nor Botham would make the top 5 bowlers of their generation

I think there is. One looks at Kallis numbers and stands in amazement (hence my assertion of statistical delight). One looks at Kapil, Botham, Miller, Imran and starts picking out greatest all-around performances on the stage of cricket. Botham's performance in Bombay test, for example, is one of the greatest one man all around performance. Kapil Dev ka jikr to hum kar hi chuke hain. You can similarly pull out numbers for Miller where he scored at 40 plus as a batsman and under 20 as a bowler in a test series multiple times. Not sure how many times Kallis has done that. Not to deride him obviously. Kallis is an ATG. However his stature has grown over the years as has his numbers increased. My list of top 5 all rounders would not include him. Just MTC :giggle:

[Crookbond]

I presented pure unadulterated statistics for first half of his career. I did not play around at all. So, you will do this for Kallis but not for for Botham and Kapil? Makes no sense. It's like removing all the sides whom he does well against. :haha:

[rtmohanlal]

A topic of immense interest of mine... hence tracing it out. my all rounders of the fab 4 from bottom to top 4. Hadlee - the best bowler of the 4. but the least batsman of the 4 too. so the weakest of the 4 in their secondary discipline, ie : batting. so he comes only at 4. 3. Botham - similar to Kapil in many respects. so it would be better to compare him with Kapil much deeper. Kapil has much longevity than Botham in both forms of the game. Kapil easily the better one day player both in batting and bowling Kapil slightly better test bowler considering the indian conditions and the little support he got Kapil slightly better test batsman. of course this may raise a few eye brows considering that both were aggressive batsmen with Botham having 14 100s to Kapil's 8 and Botham having slightly better bat avg: .but Kapil's str: rate was a mammoth >80 against Botham's 60.Kapil took on the great Windies bowlers while Botham flopped. if we consider >75 test scores Kapil has 15 such scores against Botham's 16 even though they differed in no: of 100s by 6.and in these 15 >75 scores he averaged 131.5 at a mammoth str: rate of 96.45 . for Botham the respective figures are 140.78 and 76.45 respectively. only a difference of 9.28 in avg: but difference of 20 w.r.t str: rate in favour of Kapil. that means Botham took 184.15 balls to score 140.78 runs where as Kapil took only 136.34 balls to score 131.5 runs.and what not 4 of these came against rampant West Indies against Botham's '1 such score in home condition'.that all shows how effective a batsman was Kapil to score all these runs in the company of tail enders at a rapid pace. Kapil was the better over all fielder. he could field any where. take catches just like the one he took in the 83 world cup to dismiss Viv.he was brilliant in the slips too.Botham was a specialist in the slips. Kapil better captain than Botham by a fair distance.lead from the front in the 83 world cup .produced that brilliant 175 not out at a very critical stage of the tournament. he was the batsman of the tournament with a 60.6 avg: and 108.99 str: rate.he took 12 wkts too at 20.41 avg:.took the all important catch of Vivl. and he was easily the best all rounder in the 1992 world cup too for that matter , though past his prime.he led India to series victory in England, led from the front with both bat and ball in the tours to WI and AUS as captain,drew the series in AUS as captain though India had the upper hand in 2 tests etc etc with a comparatively weaker team at his disposal. 2. Imran Khan - better bat and bowl avgs than Kapil . but as a batsman Kapil was a level above from Imran. Imran's bat avg: is not only a reflection of his performance, but also his style of play and role in the team too.this enabled him to get lot of not outs which boosted his average.On the other hand Kapil scored quick runs in the company of non solid, unreliable tail enders which for me is a much more difficult task than that of a normal batsman in that he can easily run out of partners. yet Kapil scored 58 >35 scores.some of these inns hugely impacted the out come of the match.Kapil belonged to a team which was second from the bottom , other wise a lot more of his knocks would have changed the result of the match. Kapil as bowler was also not far behind from Imran if we consider his longevity, lack of adequate support and his work load.by work load i mean no: of tests played/ year. Though Imran was a better captain , Kapil had lot of highlights in captaincy too which i have already mentioned.Also Kapil was much better all round fielder than Imran. in one day cricket too he was the better allrounder to Imran So 1 .Kapil

[BlueBee]

Mitchell Johnson :D

[gazza]

Well for me the most naturally talented allrounders ever were sobers, procter, miller and botham but to pick a best after sobers is tough. I think Procter may have been the next closest in numbers had he had a long career but he didn't. Botham's ability to combine match winning batting and bowling in the one match is also unparalleled but he probably didn't prolong it for long enough. Kapil was a really really good allrounder but was never the best in one suit at anytime and all the other main contenders were. Cairns imo underrated but nonetheless not in contention. I think it probably comes down to imran and miller with imran maybe winning out. It depends on your outlook, Imran got it done on the field for a good period, though others had the greater talent and didn't take advantage of it for various reasons. On sheer numbers Kallis has to be up there to.

[garverpaul]

Imran khan

[rtmohanlal]

Well for me the most naturally talented allrounders ever were sobers, procter, miller and botham but to pick a best after sobers is tough. I think Procter may have been the next closest in numbers had he had a long career but he didn't. Botham's ability to combine match winning batting and bowling in the one match is also unparalleled but he probably didn't prolong it for long enough. Kapil was a really really good allrounder but was never the best in one suit at anytime and all the other main contenders were. Cairns imo underrated but nonetheless not in contention. I think it probably comes down to imran and miller with imran maybe winning out. It depends on your outlook, Imran got it done on the field for a good period, though others had the greater talent and didn't take advantage of it for various reasons. On sheer numbers Kallis has to be up there to.

Botham indeed had put some brilliant all round performances of 100 runs and 5 wkts 5 times and in one instance a 100 & 10 wkts in the same test. but he did most of these in his peak of first 4 years or so.but this peak was a little impacted by Kerry Packer WSC, no doubt.More over any of his all round feats above mentioned didn't come against the best team of his era WI.Now coming to Kapil, he too had brilliant all round performances, but the only small shortage is that it didn't meet the statistical highlight of 100 runs & 5 wkts combined. i shall point out some instances of his all round play 7 4 84 PAK 5 3 41,89 ENG 5 73 pAK 3 126* WI 3 100* WI see the above figures.they all would have missed the combination of '5 wkts & 100 runs' one way or other slightly. but if we consider the speeds at which Kapil scored those runs and the quality of the opposition taken we can see that they do not lag by much. also we must not forget that Kapil played 131 non stop tests in 16 years with little support.we have to consider all these in anaysing Kapil as a bowler.he indeed was the best one day player among those 4 too.

[rtmohanlal]

Imran khan

for me if we compare both Kapil's and Imran's performances in every discipline of theirs and put total marks, there is nothing to choose between them. again Imran's bowling figures is some what spoiled by ball tampering in all possibilities w.r.t me . so he is not no: 1 for me

[gazza]

i don't want to get into another debate about kapil and botham, you can put kapil at #1 all you like, it doesn't discount what botham achieved and that was more significant bowling feats (4fers, 5fers, 10fers) and more significant batting feats in less matches and that is quite an achievement considering botham's peak was so short (and that kapil himself is a great all rounder - for botham to end with comparable stats to great all rounders despite the decline shows how good he truly was at his peak). the length in years of botham's peak becomes insignificant when you realise how much he achieved in that period (which is better than what most all rounders achieve in a whole career). take his first 53 matches (a significant amount of matches) he made 11 centuries, HS 208, and got 19 5fers, best bowling 8/34, batting average of over 38 and bowling average in the 23s. that's his record over a period that is just a slight bit greater than 5 years and slightly more than half his career matches. it's a much tighter race between the 80s 4 than people make out and all of them (even hadlee) have a case for various reasons to claim to be the best of that period. anyway botham by the majority at least is not considered the next best after sobers is, imran generally is so shouldn't the debate be more about kapil V imran? the debate between botham and kapil is an interesting one and imo it can go either way (though personal preferance based on my own criteria puts botham ahead) but if we are discussing the best after sobers i don't think anyone would quibble to hard about botham, imran on the other hand is probably the most widely accepted as the greatest all rounder after sobers so the kapil argument should be geared towards imran rather than botham.

[rtmohanlal]

i don't want to get into another debate about kapil and botham, you can put kapil at #1 all you like, it doesn't discount what botham achieved and that was more significant bowling feats (4fers, 5fers, 10fers) and more significant batting feats in less matches and that is quite an achievement considering botham's peak was so short (and that kapil himself is a great all rounder - for botham to end with comparable stats to great all rounders despite the decline shows how good he truly was at his peak). the length in years of botham's peak becomes insignificant when you realise how much he achieved in that period (which is better than what most all rounders achieve in a whole career). take his first 53 matches (a significant amount of matches) he made 11 centuries, HS 208, and got 19 5fers, best bowling 8/34, batting average of over 38 and bowling average in the 23s. that's his record over a period that is just a slight bit greater than 5 years and slightly more than half his career matches. it's a much tighter race between the 80s 4 than people make out and all of them (even hadlee) have a case for various reasons to claim to be the best of that period. anyway botham by the majority at least is not considered the next best after sobers is, imran generally is so shouldn't the debate be more about kapil V imran? the debate between botham and kapil is an interesting one and imo it can go either way (though personal preferance based on my own criteria puts botham ahead) but if we are discussing the best after sobers i don't think anyone would quibble to hard about botham, imran on the other hand is probably the most widely accepted as the greatest all rounder after sobers so the kapil argument should be geared towards imran rather than botham.

Kapil was at a fairly bit disadvantage with lack of proper bowling support.here i think Botham was more at benefit because of the company of a better bowler in Bob willis. a strong partner at other end means you are always at fair advantage.if we check Bob's record we can see that he was a perfect partner to Botham. and when he struggled in his only failure place WI , Botham too struggled.another thing is that had Botham bowled the same no: of balls as Kapil did(27740 : 21815 that is Kapil bowled a whopping 5925 more balls than Botham) would he have been able to keep the same avg: of 28.40? i doubt.also quite naturally all the above resulted in slightly more no: of 5 fers etc for Botham. w.r.t batting feats i earlier briefly described their plus and minus. of these the one major factor that swings in Kapi's favour is his str: rate of >80 against Botham's 60.w.r.t peak yes i agree with you in that he deserves special marks for the same. but then it has its demerits too in that it was of only 53 tests, it came against Packer affected sides, did not come against Windies etc. also Botham's drastic fall in remaining 49 tests belittle that peak some what . w.r.t Kapil vs Imran, what separates them the most is their test bowling.it is here that the gap between them is the most.but if we consider Kapil's longevity, support cast factor and work load(Imran only played 88 tests in 21 years as against `131 in 16 years for Kapil') this gap narrows considerably. for eg: Kapil at the end of 88 tests had 311 wkts against Imran's 362...means 311/362 = 85.91% of wkts as that of Imran.add 'support cast' and 'workload' elements to it, we can see Kapil was atleast 85% a bowler as Imran.now add Kapil being the better test batsman, better one day player and better fielder to it, things then evens out for me.Imran's figures are tampered by 'ball tamper' too. it is a proven fact what ever stats may say.so Kapil edges out for me.

[gazza]

Kapil was at a fairly bit disadvantage with lack of proper bowling support.here i think Botham was more at benefit because of the company of a better bowler in Bob willis. a strong partner at other end means you are always at fair advantage.if we check Bob's record we can see that he was a perfect partner to Botham. and when he struggled in his only failure place WI , Botham too struggled.another thing is that had Botham bowled the same no: of balls as Kapil did(27740 : 21815 that is Kapil bowled a whopping 5925 more balls than Botham) would he have been able to keep the same avg: of 28.40? i doubt.also quite naturally all the above resulted in slightly more no: of 5 fers etc for Botham. w.r.t batting feats i earlier briefly described their plus and minus. of these the one major factor that swings in Kapi's favour is his str: rate of >80 against Botham's 60.w.r.t peak yes i agree with you in that he deserves special marks for the same. but then it has its demerits too in that it was of only 53 tests, it came against Packer affected sides, did not come against Windies etc. also Botham's drastic fall in remaining 49 tests belittle that peak some what . w.r.t Kapil vs Imran, what separates them the most is their test bowling.it is here that the gap between them is the most.but if we consider Kapil's longevity, support cast factor and work load(Imran only played 88 tests in 21 years as against `131 in 16 years for Kapil') this gap narrows considerably. for eg: Kapil at the end of 88 tests had 311 wkts against Imran's 362...means 311/362 = 85.91% of wkts as that of Imran.add 'support cast' and 'workload' elements to it, we can see Kapil was atleast 85% a bowler as Imran.now add Kapil being the better test batsman, better one day player and better fielder to it, things then evens out for me.Imran's figures are tampered by 'ball tamper' too. it is a proven fact what ever stats may say.so Kapil edges out for me.

listen there are arguments for everything, kapil never achieved the amount of 5 wickets and centuries in the same match as botham (nobody else has either). all of these all rounders are so close that we can use certain facts to push them ahead of the others. at the end of the day we are just saying kapil did this, botham did that, imran did those things etc but there is nothing clear cut that puts one above the other that's why the discussions on them are just circular and never get anywhere. i've no problem if you think kapil is the best, personally i don't. for me hadlee was the best bowler, imran the next best then it's a tighter race between botham and kapil because botham was better for a big portion of test matches with the ball than kapil was but kapil bowled higher quality for longer (in other words kapil was consistently very good whilst botham had a strong period of being very very good perhaps even great but also had a period of being average). for batting imo it's botham then a tight race between imran and kapil and then hadlee. but i think that imran is widely regarded as the best bowling all rounder ever and for a lot the best after sobers, well that holds some weight for me. if i was picking favourites i'd certainly be going with procter then miller or botham but it's not about favourites.

[rtmohanlal]

listen there are arguments for everything, kapil never achieved the amount of 5 wickets and centuries in the same match as botham (nobody else has either). all of these all rounders are so close that we can use certain facts to push them ahead of the others. at the end of the day we are just saying kapil did this, botham did that, imran did those things etc but there is nothing clear cut that puts one above the other that's why the discussions on them are just circular and never get anywhere. i've no problem if you think kapil is the best, personally i don't. for me hadlee was the best bowler, imran the next best then it's a tighter race between botham and kapil because botham was better for a big portion of test matches with the ball than kapil was but kapil bowled higher quality for longer (in other words kapil was consistently very good whilst botham had a strong period of being very very good perhaps even great but also had a period of being average). for batting imo it's botham then a tight race between imran and kapil and then hadlee. but i think that imran is widely regarded as the best bowling all rounder ever and for a lot the best after sobers, well that holds some weight for me. if i was picking favourites i'd certainly be going with procter then miller or botham but it's not about favourites.

yes ,we must have healthy arguments and that is the way it should be.i stated with plain reasons as to why Kapil didn't have same no: of 5fers as that of Botham.again these '5 wkts + 100 runs' etc are statistical high lights only in that can you dismiss Kapil's '84 runs + 11 wkts vs Pak ' as a lesser achievement than a `100 runs + 10 wkts in the same match' ? w.r.t Kapil's batting too Kapil lagged Botham only by 2.49 in bat avg: but towered him by 20.2 in str: rate.this is tests only.in one dayers the gap in their batting performance is really big.yet you consider Botham to be better bat , so be it. w.r.t Imran being the best... i don't like to go by conventions because conventional beliefs have lot of hypes associated with them.i stated crystal clear facts as to why i consider Kapil better than Imran too.Imran clearly tampered with the ball and i just can't take as such the credentials of such a player. any way each to his own

[gazza]

yes ,we must have healthy arguments and that is the way it should be.i stated with plain reasons as to why Kapil didn't have same no: of 5fers as that of Botham.again these '5 wkts + 100 runs' etc are statistical high lights only in that can you dismiss Kapil's '84 runs + 11 wkts vs Pak ' as a lesser achievement than a `100 runs + 10 wkts in the same match' ? w.r.t Kapil's batting too Kapil lagged Botham only by 2.49 in bat avg: but towered him by 20.2 in str: rate.this is tests only.in one dayers the gap in their batting performance is really big.yet you consider Botham to be better bat , so be it. w.r.t Imran being the best... i don't like to go by conventions because conventional beliefs have lot of hypes associated with them.i stated crystal clear facts as to why i consider Kapil better than Imran too.Imran clearly tampered with the ball and i just can't take as such the credentials of such a player. any way each to his own

yes but i've stated in the other thread many reasons why botham is a worthy contender for the #1 allrounder of the big 4. i'm not trying to discredit kapil, merely showing that it's easy for one person to think one of them is the best but just as easy for someone else to logically think one of the others is the best. as far as imran, well why wouldn't you take the opinions of those who played with him, saw him, cricket experts etc? are they all just ignorant? it has to have some weight if not a lot. as far as imran tampering well we don't know who tampered, how often and to what degree. yes he admitted it and others have said it but have people come out (those playing with him especially) and said he was a lesser bowler because of it? hadlee thinks ball tampering isn't such a big issue and should be allowed, we could easily from his opinion believe that he quite possibly could have tampered himself otherwise you'd think he'd be against it. if people really though imran tampering made such a huge impact then wouldn't they have come out and said he is an overrated bowler? it doesn't happen, people still consider him an ATG so either it didn't have much impact or maybe the others did it to. just back to kapil botham again, i'm sure botham also had times other than his 100s and 5fers together where he got runs and wickets so that's really an irrelevant debate and you can't say well botham wouldn't have done this if he played longer, because he didn't the stats and performances are as they are not what they could have been (that's why procter isn't even part of these discussions). you obviously hold strike rate very highly even in tests, your opinion which you are allowed but i and most others don't have it as high on our lists and it might be hard for you to understand that but the bottom line is strike rate isn't really that important in tests (it doesn't have as much of an impact to the match) which is why no one makes a big deal about kapil's being so high. as far as ODI cricket, i said in the other thread i believe kapil was the better ODI all rounder, when i talk about the best i'm talking test cricket because it's my opinion that it's the most important and toughest format. obviously talking across all formats there is more to favour kapil because he was a better ODI all rounder. but sorry i generally separate formats as they are so different to each other. give me a ODI all rounder debate and i surely wouldn't talk about botham as often.

[rtmohanlal]

yes but i've stated in the other thread many reasons why botham is a worthy contender for the #1 allrounder of the big 4. i'm not trying to discredit kapil, merely showing that it's easy for one person to think one of them is the best but just as easy for someone else to logically think one of the others is the best. as far as imran, well why wouldn't you take the opinions of those who played with him, saw him, cricket experts etc? are they all just ignorant? it has to have some weight if not a lot. as far as imran tampering well we don't know who tampered, how often and to what degree. yes he admitted it and others have said it but have people come out (those playing with him especially) and said he was a lesser bowler because of it? hadlee thinks ball tampering isn't such a big issue and should be allowed, we could easily from his opinion believe that he quite possibly could have tampered himself otherwise you'd think he'd be against it. if people really though imran tampering made such a huge impact then wouldn't they have come out and said he is an overrated bowler? it doesn't happen, people still consider him an ATG so either it didn't have much impact or maybe the others did it to. just back to kapil botham again, i'm sure botham also had times other than his 100s and 5fers together where he got runs and wickets so that's really an irrelevant debate and you can't say well botham wouldn't have done this if he played longer, because he didn't the stats and performances are as they are not what they could have been (that's why procter isn't even part of these discussions). you obviously hold strike rate very highly even in tests, your opinion which you are allowed but i and most others don't have it as high on our lists and it might be hard for you to understand that but the bottom line is strike rate isn't really that important in tests (it doesn't have as much of an impact to the match) which is why no one makes a big deal about kapil's being so high. as far as ODI cricket, i said in the other thread i believe kapil was the better ODI all rounder, when i talk about the best i'm talking test cricket because it's my opinion that it's the most important and toughest format. obviously talking across all formats there is more to favour kapil because he was a better ODI all rounder. but sorry i generally separate formats as they are so different to each other. give me a ODI all rounder debate and i surely wouldn't talk about botham as often.

w.r.t Imran and ball tamper, i had created a separate thread w.r.t .it would be nice of you to go thru the details and testimony of several players. no offence to you..it is just tiring to write again those things here.yes there would have been several players involved in tampering. But from available reliable data Imran was the worst and Kapil never indulged in those things. w.r.t Botham's all round performances yes he too would have those of like Kapil's no:s what i specified earlier.agreed.similarly Kapil too would have one to one slightly less all round no:s to match these performances of Botham's. the basic thing here is that it is not as if Botham 5 Kapil 0 based on '100 runs + 5 wkts'.that is what i wanted to convey in this regard.here Botham is ahead and he deserves extra marks in these comparions for the same . no doubt about that.but we must not forget that had Kapil enjoyed the advantages of Botham in bowling his bowling stats would have improved and that inturn woud have improved his all round numbers too. you may not agree with me w.r.t 'what it woud have been etc etc'. but then both Kapil and Botham having played over 100 tests each these need to be taken into account, other wise that would be not be an impartial analysis.any way each to his own. w.r.t str: rate in tests.... yes i know the conventional beliefs didn't take str: rate that higher especially that of all rounders. but don't forget here that Viv with a str: rate of 69.21 was considered the best batsman from 80s due to his str: rate.by the same yard stick i feel Kapil with 80.91 need to be the best bat among all rounders. any wrong in that? if we go thru Kapil's >35 scores he scored 58 of them, that is one in every 3.15 inns at str: rate of 88.39 and avg: runs/inns of 64.43.....88.39 means he completely created havoc among the bowlers.but unfortunately India was a side which lied 2nd from bottom those days to take complete advantage of Kapil's exploits.naturally all his such inns didn't make an impact on the result of the match but some of them did indeed.and Kapil did all these inns in the company of tailenders.do you feel it an advantage or disadvantage? i feel it as a huge disadvantage when compared to higher order batsman because tail enders are much less technically sound, more prone to getting out quickly, can't rotate str: like normal batsman etc etc.yet Kapil did 58 >35 inns, he did bulk of the scoring by murdering bowl attacks , he did that even to Marshall and company. yes by conventional thinking it is just another normal thing, but for me it is 'the factor' that makes Kapil THE BEST bat of the 4. now that all have played several one dayers and world cups for that matter, why can't we combine the 2 formats and analyse?any way each to his own:winky:

[gazza]

You can combine the two but I don't

[gazza]

Btw I've read through the Imran thread, I've also heard all of your rehashed arguments about kapil as I'm sure you have mine about botham.

[rtmohanlal]

Btw I've read through the Imran thread' date=' I've also heard all of your rehashed arguments about kapil as I'm sure you have mine about botham.[/quote'] ok...really nice to get more facts about Botham. Botham, a great all rounder for me , with out a doubt.. but Kapil better all rounder for me. and i respect your opinions too:. any way each to his own. no regrets.:winky:

[gazza]

ok...really nice to get more facts about Botham. Botham' date=' a great all rounder for me , with out a doubt.. but Kapil better all rounder for me. and i respect your opinions too:. any way each to his own. no regrets.:winky:[/quote'] i respect your opinions on kapil, tbh it's good to hear some good arguments for kapil as from my experience a lot of people place him lower down in the pack, though for me botham is a better test all rounder i've certainly gained greater respect for kapil with these discussions.

[Pakistan]

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

Is it the same list which has no Sachin innings?