Ian Botham or Imran Khan in peak period?

[Muloghonto]

so that one stat is more important than all others is it? because pretty much in all others botham is ahead as an all rounder' date=' imran and hadlee have a case as bowlers but not as all rounders. there are plenty of stats backing botham ahead so no that one stat doesn't make him clearly inferior, if anything the other stats that favour him (the majority of the stats) make it clear that he is ahead.[/quote'] Bothams average, runs, wickets taken are all in the same vicinity as kapil. With one clear difference: botham was far less effective with bat and ball against the best team and botham was far less effective as the lone hborse after willis and underwood retired. That makes it pretty decisively in,kapils favor. That botham has far more fivefers and centuries despite having nearly the same wickets/innings and runs/innings as kapil points to only one thing: kapil was more consistent. Sent from my GT-S5830D using Tapatalk 2

[gazza]

Bothams average, runs, wickets taken are all in the same vicinity as kapil. With one clear difference: botham was far less effective with bat and ball against the best team and botham was far less effective as the lone hborse after willis and underwood retired. That makes it pretty decisively in,kapils favor. That botham has far more fivefers and centuries despite having nearly the same wickets/innings and runs/innings as kapil points to only one thing: kapil was more consistent. Sent from my GT-S5830D using Tapatalk 2

hadlee was better than all of them against WI based on averages so what that makes him the best? no it doesn't and pretty much no one would agree hadlee was the best "allrounder" of the era. fact is most see imran as the best allrounder of the era and that's perfectly fine, he has a very good case, but so does botham, kapil and hadlee were great players but people generally say hadlee wasn't close enough with the bat to be labelled the best allrounder out of them and well kapil doesn't come up very often so that says something. wickets/innings botham is at 2.2 kapil at 1.9, per match botham 3.7 kapil 3.3. runs/innings botham is at 32.3 kapil 28.5, per match botham is 51 runs and kapil is 40.1. i'm sorry how is kapil more consistent? botham also has the better bowling and batting averages, so how was kapil more consistent? worse strike rate, less 5fers, less 10fers, same amount of 4fers yet kapil played 29 more matches. kapil batted in 23 more innings but only scored 248 more runs than botham, 6 less centuries, kapil had almost triple the not outs botham had (botham 6, kapil 15) yet kapil had a lower batting average (and bowling average) so again how does that make kapil more consistent? over the career botham has the numbers to favour him over kapil, and over the peak period, botham also has the numbers. kapil was a tremendous allrounder but to say he is decisively better than botham is not logical. at least if you're going to argue kapil over botham then say it's close with kapil edging it, that would give some credibility but no sorry it's in no way decisive that kapil is ahead of botham if it's decisive one way then it's towards botham. btw what you said just shows botham is a greater match winner and can rip through sides better than kapil and take them apart with the bat better than kapil. and at the end of the match those sort of performances mean more, they help the team win more and that's the point of cricket.

[Muloghonto]

hadlee was better than all of them against WI based on averages so what that makes him the best? no it doesn't and pretty much no one would agree hadlee was the best "allrounder" of the era.

Red herring argument. I will re-iterate one final time: when player A and player B have very similar overall record and player A has a significantly better record against the best opposition, then A>B. You bring up Hadlee as a red herring because while Hadlee *is* considered the best bowler amongst the four, he does not have the overall batting track record to be considered their equals as allrounders.

fact is most see imran as the best allrounder of the era and that's perfectly fine, he has a very good case, but so does botham, kapil and hadlee were great players but people generally say hadlee wasn't close enough with the bat to be labelled the best allrounder out of them and well kapil doesn't come up very often so that says something.

Kapil > Botham. I've seen them both, at their peaks and at their lowest. Kapil was much, much better than Botham at his worst and while Botham was more flashy at his peak, Kapil at his peak murdered the West Indies with bat and ball, Botham simply was not good enough to compete against the best.

wickets/innings botham is at 2.2 kapil at 1.9, per match botham 3.7 kapil 3.3. runs/innings botham is at 32.3 kapil 28.5, per match botham is 51 runs and kapil is 40.1. i'm sorry how is kapil more consistent? botham also has the better bowling and batting averages, so how was kapil more consistent? worse strike rate, less 5fers, less 10fers, same amount of 4fers yet kapil played 29 more matches.

Botham has marginally better stats than Kapil overall. And that is, largely due to the fact that Kapil batted lower than Botham yet like Botham, didnt play for not outs (Imran did). It is universally agreed upon that when the itent is to score maximum runs, a higher order position is more favourable. Botham had far more conductive surfaces to bowl on and a far greater support cast. Kapil had, for a breif period, Doshi and Doshi was well past his best when he debuted. Botham had Willis, Underwood, etc. who were all orders of magnitude greater than the support Kapil had. One cannot shine amidst utter crap, unless one is the complete & total package. Neither men were and we saw what happened when Willis and Underwood retired: Botham shat the bed. The reason Kapil is more consistent is because he has statistically nearly identical batting and bowling averages despite having scored less centuries and taken less five fers. This means, while Botham was either the 5-fer man or got pasted for zero wickets, Kapil was far better at picking up a couple of wickets as well as taking 5-fers, though at a lesser rate. You want to see a bowler who is the best, despite having few 5-fers ? its Joel Garner. So nearly same record with more centuries/five-fers means the one with less big innings was more consistent to end up with the near identical record!

over the career botham has the numbers to favour him over kapil, and over the peak period, botham also has the numbers.

The fact that Botham had crazy peak figures is the only thing that keeps him in the discussion with the other three, IMO. For despite his peak and through it, he still was crap against the best.

kapil was a tremendous allrounder but to say he is decisively better than botham is not logical. at least if you're going to argue kapil over botham then say it's close with kapil edging it, that would give some credibility but no sorry it's in no way decisive that kapil is ahead of botham if it's decisive one way then it's towards botham.

I've presented my reasoning. Kapil averages 4% worse than Botham with the ball. Botham averages 7% more than Kapil with the bat. These are statistically insignificant difference when it comes to sum total performances spanning 15+ years. Yet, against the best team, Kapil averaged 44% more than Botham with the bat, he averages 29% more with the ball. Those are hugely significant numbers. Don't get me wrong, i am not saying performance against the best is the only benchmark. But it is one of the few top benchmarks. Sports is about excelling against the best. And when the gulf is so huge in the said excelling against the best, while weilding overall similar records, it is pretty clear that Kapil was a better quality player. To put it crudely, Kapil is to Tendulkar what Botham is to Sangakkara. Sangakkara has a better average than Tendulkar ( as of now) and better century scoring rate, yet we all know that against the best teams, Sangakkara is nowhere comparable to Tendulkar and is a bit of a minnow basher (though an excellent and ATG player nonetheless). Same goes with Botham. A marginally superior record constructed despite being not good enough to compete against the best.

btw what you said just shows botham is a greater match winner and can rip through sides better than kapil and take them apart with the bat better than kapil. and at the end of the match those sort of performances mean more, they help the team win more and that's the point of cricket.

And he could **** the bed worse than Kapil too, since they are so close statistically. You can say Imran is a greater matchwinner than Kapil with the ball according to stats- there is a huge gulf of difference between the two's averages, with Imran better at ripping through the sides,rest- the average or the bad days being all equal. But to rip up sides far more often than another player, yet end up with nearly the same record also means that you are far more hit-and-miss. You rip up more, you also lose the plot more. That was Botham.

[Muloghonto]

And this is just tests. In ODIs, it is no contest, include that and its pretty obvious that Kapil is a far, far better player than Botham. Kapil can realistically compete for an Alltime ODI side ( he is the perfect #7 bat for an alltime side, able to clobber 15-20 runs against anyone and being good enough to score one of the best centuries ever made in ODI cricket, he is also the perfect 3rd seam bowler in the side, with his economy and moderate wicket-taking making him competetive). Botham has no business goig anywhere close to an Alltime ODI XI outside of the English team, which is a woeful ODI side historically.

[rtmohanlal]

i wonder as to why any body is not taking Kapil's one day superiority here . he was convincingly better than Imran and far better than other 2 in this regard.

[thongale]

And this is just tests. In ODIs' date=' it is no contest, include that and its pretty obvious that Kapil is a far, far better player than Botham[b']. Kapil can realistically compete for an Alltime ODI side ( he is the perfect #7 bat for an alltime side, able to clobber 15-20 runs against anyone and being good enough to score one of the best centuries ever made in ODI cricket, he is also the perfect 3rd seam bowler in the side, with his economy and moderate wicket-taking making him competetive). Botham has no business goig anywhere close to an Alltime ODI XI outside of the English team, which is a woeful ODI side historically.

Highly debatable, especially when Dhoni, Symonds, Klusener and Pollock are far better ODI players than kapil.

[undisputed chap]

i wonder as to why any body is not taking Kapil's one day superiority here . he was convincingly better than Imran and far better than other 2 in this regard.

how is kapil superior when botham has similar bowling& batting averages

[Vilander]

Kallis better than both.

[rtmohanlal]

how is kapil superior when botham has similar bowling& batting averages

see ... this is the problem of looking merely at averages as i always have believed. here you are completely neglecting the small matter that Kapil played almost twice the no: of one dayers as that of Botham. infact 225 : 116. do you feel that it is easy to maintain the bat avg: by default even after playing twice the no: of matches. especially we have to look into the matter that we are talking about all rounders and hence it is much more harder than any specialist to maintain high standards over longer periods of time. for eg: here Kapil's and Botham's career avg:s are 23.79 & 23.21 respectively.also you must not forget that their str: rates where 95.07 & 79.1. now Botham played 106 inns only . let us see as to what where Kapil's figures at the end of 106 inns. ooh... it stood at 28.16 & 105.09 respectively !!!. this difference is reflected in their bowling figures too.you realise the difference i suppose. all this Kapil achieved by playing a whopping 131 tests along with it. now to add to all to this you shall check Kapil's exploits in 1983 and 92 world cups.in short he was easily the best all rounder in these 2 tournaments by a fair margin.now you can see as to why Kapil is vastly superior in one dayers.

[gazza]

Red herring argument. I will re-iterate one final time: when player A and player B have very similar overall record and player A has a significantly better record against the best opposition, then A>B. You bring up Hadlee as a red herring because while Hadlee *is* considered the best bowler amongst the four, he does not have the overall batting track record to be considered their equals as allrounders. Kapil > Botham. I've seen them both, at their peaks and at their lowest. Kapil was much, much better than Botham at his worst and while Botham was more flashy at his peak, Kapil at his peak murdered the West Indies with bat and ball, Botham simply was not good enough to compete against the best. Botham has marginally better stats than Kapil overall. And that is, largely due to the fact that Kapil batted lower than Botham yet like Botham, didnt play for not outs (Imran did). It is universally agreed upon that when the itent is to score maximum runs, a higher order position is more favourable. Botham had far more conductive surfaces to bowl on and a far greater support cast. Kapil had, for a breif period, Doshi and Doshi was well past his best when he debuted. Botham had Willis, Underwood, etc. who were all orders of magnitude greater than the support Kapil had. One cannot shine amidst utter crap, unless one is the complete & total package. Neither men were and we saw what happened when Willis and Underwood retired: Botham shat the bed. The reason Kapil is more consistent is because he has statistically nearly identical batting and bowling averages despite having scored less centuries and taken less five fers. This means, while Botham was either the 5-fer man or got pasted for zero wickets, Kapil was far better at picking up a couple of wickets as well as taking 5-fers, though at a lesser rate. You want to see a bowler who is the best, despite having few 5-fers ? its Joel Garner. So nearly same record with more centuries/five-fers means the one with less big innings was more consistent to end up with the near identical record! The fact that Botham had crazy peak figures is the only thing that keeps him in the discussion with the other three, IMO. For despite his peak and through it, he still was crap against the best. I've presented my reasoning. Kapil averages 4% worse than Botham with the ball. Botham averages 7% more than Kapil with the bat. These are statistically insignificant difference when it comes to sum total performances spanning 15+ years. Yet, against the best team, Kapil averaged 44% more than Botham with the bat, he averages 29% more with the ball. Those are hugely significant numbers. Don't get me wrong, i am not saying performance against the best is the only benchmark. But it is one of the few top benchmarks. Sports is about excelling against the best. And when the gulf is so huge in the said excelling against the best, while weilding overall similar records, it is pretty clear that Kapil was a better quality player. To put it crudely, Kapil is to Tendulkar what Botham is to Sangakkara. Sangakkara has a better average than Tendulkar ( as of now) and better century scoring rate, yet we all know that against the best teams, Sangakkara is nowhere comparable to Tendulkar and is a bit of a minnow basher (though an excellent and ATG player nonetheless). Same goes with Botham. A marginally superior record constructed despite being not good enough to compete against the best. And he could **** the bed worse than Kapil too, since they are so close statistically. You can say Imran is a greater matchwinner than Kapil with the ball according to stats- there is a huge gulf of difference between the two's averages, with Imran better at ripping through the sides,rest- the average or the bad days being all equal. But to rip up sides far more often than another player, yet end up with nearly the same record also means that you are far more hit-and-miss. You rip up more, you also lose the plot more. That was Botham.

um yeah no! you have no idea, you're argument is flawed, and yes just tests, kapil is the better ODI player.

[Muloghonto]

um yeah no! you have no idea' date=' you're argument is flawed, and yes just tests, kapil is the better ODI player.[/quote'] Nice counter :haha::haha: I've demonstrated that Kapil and Botham are negligibly different in terms of their overall record and I've also shown that Kapil's record against the best team- which is an ATG team to've dominated the sport for 15 years- is massively better than Botham. My case is, when most things are equal (which their records are), its the things like performing at the greatest stage/against the best teams make the difference. And you are yet to present arguments to a) how that position is wrong and b) how that position is untrue.

[gazza]

Nice counter :haha::haha: I've demonstrated that Kapil and Botham are negligibly different in terms of their overall record and I've also shown that Kapil's record against the best team- which is an ATG team to've dominated the sport for 15 years- is massively better than Botham. My case is, when most things are equal (which their records are), its the things like performing at the greatest stage/against the best teams make the difference. And you are yet to present arguments to a) how that position is wrong and b) how that position is untrue.

I've presented more than enough to prove you're position untrue, anyway they're both great allrounders.

[Muloghonto]

Highly debatable' date=' especially when Dhoni, Symonds, Klusener and Pollock are far better ODI players than kapil.[/quote'] Dhoni & Symonds are not #7 batsmen. If you put them there, you are compromising the bowling by including 4 specialist bowlers when 5 is mandatory for an ATG side. Pollock and Kapil are very comparable: Pollock was a Kapil with more accuracy & bounce but less movement and marginally less stamina. However, when it comes to batting, its where the huge difference is. Pollock is not a complete batsman, Kapil was. By complete, i mean every shot in the book, ability to dominate bowling when he got going and ability to play excellently against every type of bowling- including the best ones. Pollock is much more of an Imran type batsman, of less ability: a limited batsman who will stick to what he knows and is unable to put team before personal style due to this limited nature. Kapil is your guy to come in, with 5 overs left, bash a 30 off of 20 balls or a 20 off of 10 with amazing routine. Yes, he will get his zeros and ones like every guy comming in at 45 over mark suffers. But he also has the ability to score massively and rescue his team, an ability that is not mandatory of a ODI #7 but extremely handy to have. Klusener is a challenger, but IMO he is a better choice than Klusener. Simply because, neither Kapil, nor Klusener gets the new ball in a theoretical ODI Hall of famer side, those roles are reserved for the likes of Wasim, Waqar, McGrath, Ambrose,Garner, Lee, Akhtar, etc. What we seek in a third seamer in ODIs is the ability to keep it tight and not release the pressure of the breakthroughs achieved by the frontline opening bowlers. Kapil is the ideal candidate for this, for he is pollock-esque 'economy over wicket-taking' bowler, who can fetch you wickets if the batsmen try to take him apart. Plus, Kapil was a very good outfielder. Yes, he did not do the diving stops like they do today. But he is good enough to cover a million miles in the outfield, had a rifle of an arm (not even Gus Logie, a legendary runner between the wickets, took on Kapil's arm) and was as safe as a baseball mitt in catching. Now, Klusener on the other hand, is a gun of a batsman (though TBH, Klusener was one of those 'jawdropping for a couple of years, average for the rest' type, who i value less than 'less jawdropping but well above average for much,much longer' types). He satisfies the#7's role of scoring some runs really quick. Granted. But his bowling is not what I'd pick for a third seamer role. Klusener had most of his success opening the bowling and was not a very good middle overs bowler. This is because Klusener was not accurate and to a plan bowler like Kapil was, he was an aggressive wicket-taking fast bowler, just not a great one. So this results in Klusener being a bit more of a risk. He is likelier than Kapil to 'finish off a reeling opposition in ODIs' but IMO, that is not the primary objective of a 3rd seamer in ODIs and while highly valuable, cannot be put ahead of 'the guy who tightens the screws and suffocates an already reeling side'. For, that is clearly the odds-on ideal for a middle overs ODI bowler.

[Muloghonto]

I've presented more than enough to prove you're position untrue' date=' anyway they're both great allrounders.[/quote'] I disagree. You said Botham's record is much superior to Kapil's. I've demonstrated that for the records that matter- # of wickets, # of runs , averages and clutch performances, the difference is negligible overall. A 4% and a 7% difference in career averages *is* a negligible difference. I've also shown that their records against the best team are not similarly negligible in the opposite direction, it is massively so: as 44% and 29% differentials demonstrate. Therefore, it does support my point that at the end of the day, Kapil was a much, much better player against the best team going around and if the point of these 'who is better' is to justify their positions in a potential alltime great side to battle other alltime great sides, performance against the best teams does get weighed disproportionately in this line of thought. It has to. Now, if you wish to argue that such a huge difference in performance against the best team while sporting nearly similar records overall, should not be decisive, i am yet to hear any categoric reasoning for so. You've stated that performance agaisnt the best team should not be the only thing. Well, hallelujah, i said that in the beginning that its not the only thing but it does matter. You are yet to justify said statement.

[gazza]

I don't have to justify anything in regard to that because its subjective opinion not fact. You deciding that 20 or so matches against the best team instead of the other 80 or more they played is more important is simply ones criteria to judge a player and is different from individual to individual.

[vamos_rafa]

I don't have to justify anything in regard to that because its subjective opinion not fact. You deciding that 20 or so matches against the best team instead of the other 80 or more they played is more important is simply ones criteria to judge a player and is different from individual to individual.

I agree with you about it being a subjective topic. But, there is a reason why Kallis or Sangakara, as batsmen, inspite of all the runs, are not held in the same regard as Sachin or Lara. That's coz they have been generally inferior against Oz, and even England. Their away record in those 2 countries is even more bad. I have not seen any of the 4 great all rounders play, but performance against the best team is considered to be a major factor.

[rtmohanlal]

the general conception was always that Botham was the better all rounder to Kapil.But when we analyse their records today we can see that it was purely based on the facts that Botham has superior batting and bowling averages to Kapil....and they totally neglected Kapil's one day superiority and captaincy credentials too. now w.r.t test batting as i have aready pointed out Kapil's str: rate is a mammoth >80 when compared to Botham's 60. that means Kapil took the term 'domination' to just another level than any other player including VIV from 80s. and this factor has been over looked as just another common thing . but for me it is a special skill to score all those runs in the company of unreliable and unsolid tail enders.a batsman has to score almost all runs by himself.this Kapil did commendably on a lot of occassions all thru his career...and all this by dominating even the best of the bowlers...this is much more difficult than the task of a normal middle order batsman in that in middle order bats's case he will definitely more or less will get equal support. Another thing w.r.t Kapil is 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.that means if we remove he statistical attraction of '100' there is nothing to choose between them in this regard too. for eg: Botham has 4 100s in the range 100-108. Kapil has scores of 89,97 & 98. that means only small difference of some digital runs. On the other hand here too Kapil raised his str: rates in gigantic proportions.in >75 scores his str: rate is 96.45 where as for Botham it is only 76.45. w.R.T test bowling too Kapil was better in that he was the lone str: bowler in the team unlike Botham who had a better partner in Willis.this is evident from Botham's difference in career bowling figures in his pre Willis and post Willis times. And Kapil belonged to a team that was in the bottom of the barrel thru out the 80s.Only SL who was some sort of minnows those days was worse than India.these shows how better a player was Kapil than his test bat avg: and bowl avg: reveals. another thing is his under rated test captaincy. he achieved a test series win in ENG, achieved a creditable draw in a 3 test series in AUS where he led from the front with both bat and ball, and to top it all averaged 43 with bat and 24 with ball in his only captaincy stinct in West Indies where he scored 2 +97 scores. what more he was the best all round fielder and runner between the wickets of all the four of these players.

[thongale]

ble: Pollock was a Kapil with more accuracy & bounce but less movement and marginally less stamina.

Just Loled at this. Pollock moved the ball off the wicket like a madness. Kapil was a swing bowler. Comparison ends right there. But Pollock was in a different league to Kapil as a bowler be it ODI or test. Pollock was a class above Kapil with the ball.

However, when it comes to batting, its where the huge difference is. Pollock is not a complete batsman, Kapil was. By complete, i mean every shot in the book, ability to dominate bowling when he got going and ability to play excellently against every type of bowling- including the best ones.

Once again debatable. Pollock had every shot of the book and few of his own. As a batsman he's more or less equal to Kapil. Even Kapil is better with the bat, the gulf between their bowling is so humungous it's even not a contest.

Pollock is much more of an Imran type batsman, of less ability: a limited batsman who will stick to what he knows and is unable to put team before personal style due to this limited nature. Kapil is your guy to come in, with 5 overs left, bash a 30 off of 20 balls or a 20 off of 10 with amazing routine. Yes, he will get his zeros and ones like every guy comming in at 45 over mark suffers. But he also has the ability to score massively and rescue his team, an ability that is not mandatory of a ODI #7 but extremely handy to have.

Once again Loled as Pollock did this routinely in addition to playing responsible innings without throwing it away. In tests he's better than Kapil with the bat. In ODI's I'll give it to Kapil. But as all rounders, Pollock's bowling superiority nails it.

Klusener is a challenger, but IMO he is a better choice than Klusener. Simply because, neither Kapil, nor Klusener gets the new ball in a theoretical ODI Hall of famer side, those roles are reserved for the likes of Wasim, Waqar, McGrath, Ambrose,Garner, Lee, Akhtar, etc. What we seek in a third seamer in ODIs is the ability to keep it tight and not release the pressure of the breakthroughs achieved by the frontline opening bowlers. Kapil is the ideal candidate for this, for he is pollock-esque 'economy over wicket-taking' bowler, who can fetch you wickets if the batsmen try to take him apart.

Once again Lol. Klusener at his prime was a frigteningly quick bowler who went for wickets, and ideally the shock bowler needed who can both bowl line and length as well as bowl short stuff and smoothen the batsman. Klusener's bating average dwarf Kapil's, Even if Klusener is an infrior bowler, he makes up with the bat to such an extent it's not even a contest.

Plus, Kapil was a very good outfielder. Yes, he did not do the diving stops like they do today. But he is good enough to cover a million miles in the outfield, had a rifle of an arm (not even Gus Logie, a legendary runner between the wickets, took on Kapil's arm) and was as safe as a baseball mitt in catching.

Pollock, Klusener and Symonds are a class above Kapil in the field. This shows classic cherry picking to make Kapil more than what he is. Dhoni, Symonds and Klusener are miles ahead of Kapil as batsmen and Pollock is miles ahead as a bowler. The fact is simple, and the above four get in to teams just because of their primary ability, where Kapil coudn't with bat or the ball.

[Muloghonto]

Just Loled at this. Pollock moved the ball off the wicket like a madness. Kapil was a swing bowler. Comparison ends right there. But Pollock was in a different league to Kapil as a bowler be it ODI or test. Pollock was a class above Kapil with the ball.

And kapil moved the ball more. Pollock was a bit better but nit by a whole lot. This is evident in the sharp drop in his numbers once donald retired and he became lone striker...just like kapil.

Once again debatable. Pollock had every shot of the book and few of his own. As a batsman he's more or less equal to Kapil. Even Kapil is better with the bat, the gulf between their bowling is so humungous it's even not a contest.

Err no. pollock did not have all the shots in the book and he was not a destructive batsman, which is mandatory for a #7 facing 5 or 6 overs at average. Their odi bowling is quite comparable.

Once again Loled as Pollock did this routinely in addition to playing responsible innings without throwing it away. In tests he's better than Kapil with the bat. In ODI's I'll give it to Kapil. But as all rounders, Pollock's bowling superiority nails it.

Pollock is nowhere close to kapil the baysman in any format. Aggressive batsmen do throw it away more. Tendulkar threw away a lot more starts than chanderpaul. But pollock, like chanderpaul, was not in the same league as kapil on masterful innings against the best.

Once again Lol. Klusener at his prime was a frigteningly quick bowler who went for wickets, and ideally the shock bowler needed who can both bowl line and length as well as bowl short stuff and smoothen the batsman. Klusener's bating average dwarf Kapil's, Even if Klusener is an infrior bowler, he makes up with the bat to such an extent it's not even a contest. Pollock, Klusener and Symonds are a class above Kapil in the field.

Kapil was easily a beyter fielder than pollock or lance. Lance's batting avg is more but on the back of two amazing seasons, he lacked consistency. And I already explained why kapil is a better 3rd seamer than lance. Lance did not have the control and accuracy to b a third seamer.

This shows classic cherry picking to make Kapil more than what he is. Dhoni, Symonds and Klusener are miles ahead of Kapil as batsmen and Pollock is miles ahead as a bowler. The fact is simple, and the above four get in to teams just because of their primary ability, where Kapil coudn't with bat or the ball.

I already explained dhoni and symonds are not #7 bats. Not in contention. what is ideal for a #7 is an accurate bowler and destructive batsman. Nobody satisfies the criteria better than kapil. Sent from my GT-S5830D using Tapatalk 2

[rtmohanlal]

Just Loled at this. Pollock moved the ball off the wicket like a madness. Kapil was a swing bowler. Comparison ends right there. But Pollock was in a different league to Kapil as a bowler be it ODI or test. Pollock was a class above Kapil with the ball. Once again debatable. Pollock had every shot of the book and few of his own. As a batsman he's more or less equal to Kapil. Even Kapil is better with the bat, the gulf between their bowling is so humungous it's even not a contest. Once again Loled as Pollock did this routinely in addition to playing responsible innings without throwing it away. In tests he's better than Kapil with the bat. In ODI's I'll give it to Kapil. But as all rounders, Pollock's bowling superiority nails it. Once again Lol. Klusener at his prime was a frigteningly quick bowler who went for wickets, and ideally the shock bowler needed who can both bowl line and length as well as bowl short stuff and smoothen the batsman. Klusener's bating average dwarf Kapil's, Even if Klusener is an infrior bowler, he makes up with the bat to such an extent it's not even a contest. Pollock, Klusener and Symonds are a class above Kapil in the field. This shows classic cherry picking to make Kapil more than what he is. Dhoni, Symonds and Klusener are miles ahead of Kapil as batsmen and Pollock is miles ahead as a bowler. The fact is simple, and the above four get in to teams just because of their primary ability, where Kapil coudn't with bat or the ball.

Pollock as a bowler is very over rated. you shall check his bowling figures in both tests and one dayers with Donald and with out Donald in the team. the difference is vast, i say