i never tire of this discussion, been doing more research on this lately and tbh it's made it even more difficult to produce a clear cut best ever.
sobers - most all round allrounder (bowled left arm orthodox, left arm chinaman, bowled pace, elite batsman, top quality fielder). the fact that he could bowl 3 bowling styles at test quality level and also be one of the best batsmen/fielders ever says he is a unique special talent. people say his bowling stats are misleading, that they're not as good as they could have been due to circumstance. he has a 90+ strike rate with the ball and a 34 average, not all time great bowling stats right? but he entered the team as a left arm orthodox spinner, and was later asked to bowl pace and chinaman, he apparently was used more as a back-up bowler because the specialist bowlers were given the ball first so he got given the ball in raw conditions and/or when batsmen were really set and the specialists couldn't get them out. he was able to take 5fers at test level bowling both pace and spin.
imran - great captain, not so great fielder, great bowler, a very good batsman (but could never be consider a great batsman in terms of talent despite his 51 tests in his last 10 years when he averaged over 50 with bat). imran's plus is that for a lengthy period he averaged over 50 with bat and under 20 with ball and that he was a great captain. his negatives were his fielding and that he didn't really do his batting and bowling at the same time. first half of his career he was more a bowler, 2nd half he was more a batter. this makes him a balanced player over time but you have to ask the quesiton should an allrounder be able to do it at the same time, together?
botham - botham actually was able to do it both together, he has a good amount of centuries (imran only got 7), a good amount of wickets and during his peak he was able to score a lot of runs in the same match as getting a lot of wickets. botham has the record for most amount of tons and 5fes in an innings.
miller - always a top 5 batsman and opened the bowling quite a bit to. similar overall stats to imran but imran didn't usually bat top 5 he was usually at 6/7 so that indicates that miller was a more natural allround talent especially since miller was in one of the best teams of all time so batting in the top 5 must have meant he was a great batsman (averaged over 50 in domestic cricket, 48 for FC overall). so basically miller had the ability to bowl as an all time great bowler and bat as an all time great batsman. his batting stats are a bit misleading since he did give his wicket away, on purpose, on occasion.
kallis - certainly an all time great batsman, has nearly 300 wickets but he doesn't bowl much, only gets 2 wickets a match, decent bowling average but not great. he is used as a back-up bowler due to SA's quality bowling attack so it's tough to know what his bowling stats would have looked like if he was given the ball more often, and how it would have affected his batting.
procter - possibly the most naturally talented cricketer ever alongside miller and sobers. procter has 48 FC tons, almost 22000 FC runs, FC bowling average of under 20 and 1400 FC wickets. he was an opening express bowler, he could bat as a genuine batsman but was utilised more as a bowler and therefore batted lower down the order a lot. but he scored 6 consecutive tons in 6 innings in FC cricket at one time, the feat has only been matched by 2 others: bradman and fry. he also bowled a bit of offspin and was quite competent in that style to.
hadlee - an all time great bowler, think he has the record for most 5fers in test match cricket. probably the best bowler of the great 4 allrounders of the 80s but defintiily the worst batsman of the 4. one of the best bowlers ever but could never bat top 6.
kapil - match winning with both ball and bat but not that consistent with either. though his bowling stats probably suffered a bit due to bowling a lot in india. similar type to botham.
akram - like hadlee more a bowler than a batsman. probably the best left arm fast bowler in cricket history. but his batting average is lower than his bowling average and given that his bowling average is 23 that makes his batting average and consistency not so good. but he has a test match double ton, actually a 250+ score of 257 so the consistency might not have been there but that natural talent was there, so i'd say in natural talent he wouldn't be that far off sobers, miller, procter. he's possibly the best bowling allrounder ever, he has hadlee to compete with, and hadlee has better batting stats but at the same time wasim probably had a higher ceiling of batting talent than hadlee and same with bowling, wasim's bowling was magic at times, hadlee was more of a stick it on off stump type of bowler. so wasim with more natural talent in both batting and bowling but hadlee performing more consistently, certainly with the bat.
chris cairns - for me he is an underrated allrounder, he was explosive and devastating with the bat but a real solid bowler, not an all time great in either suit but above average in both, again similar to botham and kapil. they all had their moments with both bat and ball but none of them can claim to be greats in either suit.
shakib - of current players shakib is probably the most naturally talented allrounder. he has the quality to be a specialist bat and a specialist bowler and that's quite rare.
clive rice - like procter didn't get to play much international cricket but during the same time was one of the best allrounders playing the game. he could bowl with genuine pace and could be a savage batsman. FC batting average of 40 with 48 tons and 26000 runs, FC bowling average of 22 with 900+ wickets. let's not forget procter and rice played a lot of county cricket and at that time county cricket was very strong, much stronger than it is today.
adam gilchrist - have to have the best keeper batsman being mentioned. no one ever considers a keeper batsman as the best allrounder ever but if any of them are to be considered gilchrist is the one to look at. explosive, consistent batsman averaging 47 and one of the best keepers of all time, huge amount of dismissals to his name and probably the most dynamic behind the stumps we've ever seen.
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