What is an allrounder?

[rtmohanlal]

my criteria for a perfect allrounder is that the player should be chosen for his secondary/weaker skill alone. so that way, ian botham is the no.1 allrounder to have played test cricket. only player who would have played a lot of games just with his weaker skill - batting. 102 test games and 14 100s is damn good for a lower middle order batsman. imran would have played a few games as a test batsman. kapil would have played as a batsman in ODIs rest of them wont get chosen on their weaker skill alone - sobers (medium pace/spin), kallis (medium pace), hadlee (batting)

Kapil is the better test all rounder to Botham. Same with 'over all' too

[Bleed-Blue]

Sir batting is very weak. No power hitting. Rather more like a useless 10-15 runs in 20 balls and get out.

TBH Sometimes He Looks Very Good Lower Order Bat In Odis (He Has Played Some Criucial Innings)But Often Looks like A Hack Or Tailender. Strange One That.

[Zero_Unit]

Stuart Binny Ben Stokes Chris Woakes Corey Anderson Kieron Pollard Andre Russell Dwayne Smith Anjello Mathews I don't think anyone of them has shown consistency in both department

Mathews has been quite impressive with the bat lately. He balls well aswell. HE is a true allrounder. To me a legit allrounder would be someone the team can expect to take wickets or score runs. Take Hafeez (i know he doesn't ball anymore but when he did) or Shakib for example. Both team would expect them to score runs with the bat and take wicket with the ball. More often then not, they deliver in both department. That's a true all rounder. I don't think we had a LEGIT allrounder after Kapil Dev. Jadeja could be the one but he has a long way to go before india depends on his ass to do anything special in both department.

[Muloghonto]

My criteria: be picked in the team based on their weaker skill. By that category, the 'truest' allrounder was probably Keith Miller, a guy who averaged 22 with the ball, opening the bowling and was a career #5 in a great batting team and averaged 37, which is just a bit below par for a bonafide batsman but still good enough to get picked in a test side prior to mid 2000s. Allrounders who could make the team on their weaker skill alone: Imran Khan (batting) Kapil (bowling) Sobers(bowling- his average in bowling isn't too good but good enough to be the 4th bowler in the side) Botham (bowling) Kallis (bowling, though South Africa had deep bowlers, i can't think of a bowler who deserved to be in the team and got consistently left out for others, so I think Kallis could've played as a pure bowler in the South African side) Miller (as noted above) Chris Cairns (bowling) Vinoo Mankad (batting) Sakib Al Hassan ( batting) allrounders that don't really qualify by this benchmark: Hadlee Ravi Shastri Ritchie Benaud Wasim Akram

[thongale]

Miller would' date=' procter possibly as well (not that he played much international cricket), Clive rice but he barely played internationals, Faulkner.[/quote']Kuiper and Clive Rice, bat or the ball doesn't matter. And Shakib easily in the current context.

[thongale]

My criteria: be picked in the team based on their weaker skill. By that category, the 'truest' allrounder was probably Keith Miller, a guy who averaged 22 with the ball, opening the bowling and was a career #5 in a great batting team and averaged 37, which is just a bit below par for a bonafide batsman but still good enough to get picked in a test side prior to mid 2000s. Allrounders who could make the team on their weaker skill alone: Imran Khan (batting) Kapil (bowling) Sobers(bowling- his average in bowling isn't too good but good enough to be the 4th bowler in the side) Botham (bowling) Kallis (bowling, though South Africa had deep bowlers, i can't think of a bowler who deserved to be in the team and got consistently left out for others, so I think Kallis could've played as a pure bowler in the South African side) Miller (as noted above) Chris Cairns (bowling) Vinoo Mankad (batting) Sakib Al Hassan ( batting) allrounders that don't really qualify by this benchmark: Hadlee Ravi Shastri Ritchie Benaud Wasim Akram

Kapil's weaker suit was batting. Don't be dishonest.

[HippoSucks]

Kapil's weaker suit was batting. Don't be dishonest.

He was a fine batsman and would probably be in the team just for his batting, but his bowling was quite better compared to it.

[Muloghonto]

Kapil's weaker suit was batting. Don't be dishonest.

Err no, Kapil was a way, way better batsman than he was a bowler. You don't get to demolish West Indies fearsome foursome quartet- that many a 45+ averaging batsmen crapped themselves against, without being a bona fide batsman. Against the best of the best, its obvious who was the better bat of the 4 all rounders and who were padders of stats against weaker opposition.

[MCGGG]

Not sure I agree with an all rounder has to be good enough to be selected as a specialist in either discipline, surely a guy who can average low 30s with the ball and high 30s with the bat has to be considered an all rounder, and such a player would have great value to any team. (At test level)

[Muloghonto]

that standard came around in the pre 2000s era, where a 30-something average was good enough to be a middle order bat in test cricket. Nowadays, 30-something in the middle order is simply not good enough, so really, the actual benchmark is if you can make the team as a batsman or a bowler alone.

[thongale]

Err no' date=' Kapil was a way, way better batsman than he was a bowler. You don't get to demolish West Indies fearsome foursome quartet- that many a 45+ averaging batsmen crapped themselves against, without being a bona fide batsman. Against the best of the best, its obvious who was the better bat of the 4 all rounders and who were padders of stats against weaker opposition.[/quote']Kapil had a piss poor attitude when it came to batting. No where close to his bowling when it came to discipline. Ill disciplined batsmen are NOT good batsmen. He had tremendous talent with the bat, but his average shows what he was at the end.

[gazza]

Kuiper and Clive Rice' date=' bat or the ball doesn't matter. And Shakib easily in the current context.[/quote'] Btw I was referring to aubrey faulkner not the current faulkner.

[rtmohanlal]

Kapil had a piss poor attitude when it came to batting. No where close to his bowling when it came to discipline. Ill disciplined batsmen are NOT good batsmen. He had tremendous talent with the bat' date=' but his average shows what he was at the end.[/quote'] this is the problem of just going by avg:s alone.Kapil was a way better test batsman than his avg: suggest. Kapil's positives in batting were his huge str: rate of 80.91,2 run a ball +98 vs WI fearsome attack, scoring all the runs from 7th or 8th position with unreliable tail enders most of the time, playing a lot of impact knocks at murderous str: rate etc etc. if avg: alone is the criteria for better batsmanship then we can conclude that Mahela was a far better batsman to VVS because Mahela scored some 3000 runs more at around 4 more avg: than Laxman.

[thongale]

^^This is the problem when someone doesn't read a post carefully.

[rtmohanlal]

^^This is the problem when someone doesn't read a post carefully.

I red your post carefully ....then I responded to that 'ill disciplined' and 'low avg:' part.

[Muloghonto]

Btw I was referring to aubrey faulkner not the current faulkner.

Yeah. Iirc, hes the only allrounder to average over 40 with the bat and under 30 with the ball Sent from my GT-S5830D using Tapatalk 2

[gazza]

Yeah. Iirc, hes the only allrounder to average over 40 with the bat and under 30 with the ball Sent from my GT-S5830D using Tapatalk 2

Yeah bat average was 40.79 bowling average 26.58.

[thongale]

Doug Walters

[aNarcHy2day]

It is a very interesting discussion. The practical problem is seeing who is an all-rounder is that there is no simple clear cut definition of an all-rounder. Some say he has to contribute regularly with bat and bowl but that would be over-simplistic since batsman may bowl and win matches now and then and vice-versa. The problem is further complicated when we have to give a judgement on people who played in the past where such judgement must be made on the basis of stats. Personally, I think it is a very elitist view to say all-rounders need to get into the team as purely a batsman or a bowler. I'd much rather prefer that to be quantified as someone who can either be picked as a batsman who can bowl or a bowler he can bat, and necessarily be picked in either categories throughout his career. It covers the former view of exclusivity vis-a-vis batsman and bowler given by the others but adds a more realistic caveat to it. Hence the preceeding debate on Kapil Dev can also be solved on this basis. Similarly, Wasim would never be picked as a "Batsman who can bowl". Again, the discussion on who an all-rounder is should not be confused with one about best all-rounders since it is the same as comparing Lara with a Marlon Samuels. Stuart Binny is most obviously an all-rounder though he may not prove to be a very good one. As far as stats go, the golden rule of 30 is a good place to start. But it also needs to take in account consistency over a larger period of time so pure runs and wickets need to figure in. I go back to the Kapil Dev example. In Tests, he passes the '30 rule' with flying colors. In One dayers though, going by his Batting average which is significantly lower than 30, one could move in favor of a saying he was a bowler who could bat. But, when you take into account that he made close to 4000 runs batting from the lower middle order and quite possibly his decreased average is due to his decline in his later years, and his strike rate after 200 odd matches was 95, he is quite frankly an all-rounder too. There need to be match-based benchmarks for Wickets/ Runs to ascertain All-Roundership in addition to the Average rule. I think we can all contribute and decide what such a benchmark could be. I have certain ideas but I'd love to hear from others too. It would be a fun exercise.

[Marut]

Kapil had a piss poor attitude when it came to batting. No where close to his bowling when it came to discipline. Ill disciplined batsmen are NOT good batsmen. He had tremendous talent with the bat' date=' but his average shows what he was at the end.[/quote'] Kapil was like Richards. He always liked to dominate - of course he was not as talented as Richards with the bat, but tried to bat like Viv. Kapil Dev was one of the few Indian batsmen who stood up against pacemen. He was very strong against pace bowlers and hooked and pulled with disdain. Try bowling short to Kapil and see where the ball lands - he was a lot better than many top order batsmen against pace. If Kapil had poor attitude to batting, then so did Viv. Richards is considered better than batsmen like Gavaskar, Boycott and Miandad though all these batsmen had similar averages. This was because Viv was a destroyer of attacks. Similarly, Kapil was better than Imran, Botham and Hadlee inspite of similar averages because Kapil always dominated the bowling. I have never seen WI express pace bowlers carted around like club bowlers except by Dev. His style of batting inherently carried more risk and hence he does not average 40. Richards would have averaged 60 if he had a better attitude, but no one wants Richards to play differently to boost his averages at the expense of his strike rates. Same logic holds for Dev too.