Sobers named as greatest allrounder

[Miraz]

From Cricinfo (http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/allrounder/content/current/story/292544.html),

Sir Garry Sobers has been named as Cricinfo's Greatest Allrounder.
In November, we shortlisted 20 candidates from the last hundred years, and over five months we had weekly profiles on each one of them, with a wide range of writers highlighting their achievements and putting forward a case why they were something special.
In the end, Sobers emerged at the top of the pile. "Sobers is not just the greatest allrounder ever, but the greatest player," explained Sambit Bal, Cricinfo's editor. "He was the most natural cricketer you would ever want to see and quite simply he could do it all. He is in the top ten greatest batsmen of all time, he took over 200 Test wickets and was a sensational fielder who could field in multiple positions.


<table class="editorialTable2" align="center"><caption>User vote results</caption> <thead> <tr> <!-- headings for each column go in the "th" cells ---> <th>Position</th> <th>Player</th> <th>% of vote</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <!-- table data go in the following pairs of rows ---> <tr> <td>1.</td> <td>Imran Khan (http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/allrounder/content/story/271585.html)</td> <td>37%</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>2.</td> <td>Garry Sobers (http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/allrounder/content/story/287801.html)</td> <td>14%</td> </tr> <tr> <td>3.</td> <td>Wasim Akram (http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/allrounder/content/story/276822.html)</td> <td>13%</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>4.</td> <td>Kapil Dev (http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/allrounder/content/story/276575.html)</td> <td>11%</td> </tr> <tr> <td>5.</td> <td>Ian Botham (http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/allrounder/content/story/270522.html)</td> <td>7%</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>6.</td> <td>Jacques Kallis (http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/allrounder/content/story/273619.html)</td> <td>6%</td> </tr> <tr> <td>7.</td> <td>Learie Constantine (http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/allrounder/content/story/285429.html)</td> <td>5%</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>8.</td> <td>Richard Hadlee (http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/allrounder/content/story/290186.html)</td> <td>3%</td> </tr> <tr> <td>9.</td> <td>Adam Gilchrist (http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/allrounder/content/player/5390.html)</td> <td>2%</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>10.</td> <td>Shaun Pollock (http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/allrounder/content/story/275188.html)</td> <td>1%</td> </tr> <tr> <td>
</td> <td>All others</td> <td>1%</td></tr></tbody></table>

And a good point

Imran topped the poll, and by a surprisingly big margin. The appearance of Wasim Akram in third place suggests that Pakistan-supporting readers are better at voting than some others...

IMO, it's a fair call.

Imran wasn't a great batsman for most part of his career. He was undoubtedly a better bowler.

Sobers had better balance between batting and bowling compared to Imran.

If captaincy is one of the parameter to judge all-rounder, Imran should stand well ahead of Sobers

[Tigers_eye]

If Wasim wasn't there then Imran would get 50% of the vote, lol.

Anyways, Sobers was and is the king as an allrounder.

[Tigers_eye]

A cricketing genius, Garry Sobers excelled at all aspects of the game, and few would argue his claim as the finest allround player in modern cricket. His exceptional Test batting average tells little about the manner in which he made the runs, his elegant yet powerful style marked by all the shots, but memorably his off-side play. As a batsman he was great, as a bowler, merely superb, but would have made the West Indies side as a bowler alone. He was remarkably versatile with the ball, bowling two styles of spin - left-arm orthodox and wrist spin, but was also a fine fast-medium opening bowler. His catching close to the wicket may have been equalled but never surpassed, and he was a brilliant fielder anywhere. He was an enterprising captain - at times maybe too enterprising, as when a generous declaration allowed England to win a decisive match at Port-of-Spain. Born with an extra finger on each hand (removed at birth), Sobers excelled at most athletic activities, playing golf, soccer and bastketball for Barbados, and made his first class debut at the age of 16, appearing in Tests a year later. He was played initially mostly as a bowler, but four years later set the Test record for an individual batsman with a mammoth 365 against Pakistan. His achievments are numerous - including the six consecutive sixes hit off an over from the unfortunate Malcolm Nash, a superb innings of 254 for the Rest of the World against Australia in 1971 that earned the praise of Don Bradman, and much more. Like many West Indians, he plied his trade abroad, playing for Nottinghamshire, and South Australia. He was knighted for his services to cricket in 1975.

Many of this generation holds Lara as the best ever batsman because of some records, such as 400* etc.

Sir G Sobers use to own all of those records and some in his time. He was not only the best batsmen and the best fielder but also one of the best bowlers who could bowl both fast and spin. He entertained WI crowd, the English and Aussies. The English nor the Aussies have the guts to put someone of their own infront of him cause they were the witness of greatest artist painting on his canvus.