Who Is The Greatest All Rounder Of All Time?

[Gowza]

As the title says, who is the greatest all rounder of all time?

Garry Sobers: ATG batsman, average bowling stats but he did have the ability to win matches with his swing bowling and he could also get wickets bowling his different types of spin. also an excellent fielder and considered a very good captain.

Imran Khan: ATG bowler, solid batting stats, didn't perform with both bat and ball as often asw maybe the other great all rounders did, bowled very fast, banana swing, reverse swing, really good bouncer. also a very good captain.

Keith Miller: bowling stats compare with other all time greats bar the strike rate but he did bowl in a time when batters weren't as aggressive, didn't always put 100% effort into and therefore his test batting stats suffered but anyone who saw him bat said he could have been an all time great batsman.

Jacques Kallis: ATG batsman, solid bowling stats, not far off 300 test wickets, great fielder.

Richard Hadlee: ATG bowler, has taken a lot of test 5fers, 5 wickets per match, a couple of test centuries but his FC stats show his potential with the bat having 14 tons averaging over 30.

Kapil Dev: really solid with both bat and ball, could change the game with bat and ball.

Ian Botham: considered to have the best peak of all all rounders but it didn't last that long, similar to kapil in that he could sway a match with both bat and ball and he did both those together the most time out of all allrounders in terms of 5fers and 100s in the same innings.

Mike Procter: robbed of a brilliant test career but amazing bowling stats for the tests he did play, took thousands of FC wickets and 48 FC tons, 6 consectutive tons in FC cricket which hasn't been done by many. powerful batsman with good technique, furiously fast bowler with a dangerous bouncer, swing, seam, great strike rate. could even take wickets with some off spin. some say had he had played enough tests he would have been considered the closest to sobers as far as all rounders go.

Tony Greig: averaged 40 with the bat in tests, 32 with the ball, bowled mediums and offies, scored runs against the best attacks of his time.

Clive Rice: like proceter didn't get to show his stuff in test cricket but said by many to be on par with the great all rounders such as imran, hadlee, kapil and botham just as procter was. averaged nearly 41 with 48 tons in FC cricket, and 22 with the ball bowling fast meidum strike rate of 52.

Chris Cairns: underrated test all rounder who averaged 29 with the ball and 33 with the bat could change the game with bat and ball.

Aubrey Faulkner: batting average of 40, bowling average of 26 as a leg spinner, but said like imran khan that he didn't manage to do both well very often.

Jack Gregory: averaged nearly 37 with the bat in tests, 36 with 13 tons in FC cricket and a bowling average of 31 in tests and 20.99 in FC cricket. bowled very fast, gave the ball a good whack, was australia's best allrounder until miller, he could open the bowling and bat in the top 6.

Shaun Pollock: ATG opening bowler averaging 23 with the ball and 32 with the bat.

notable mentions: wasim akram, eddie barlow, alan davidson, ray lindwall, shakib, afridi, flintoff, wally hammond, frank worrell, eddie barlow, wawrick armstrong, richie benaud.

[al Furqaan]

Voted for Sir Garfield Sobers.

[tiger1000]

Garry Sobers
Jacques Kallis
Imran Khan

[Roey Haque]

Isn't Garfield supposed to be like miles ahead of the rest of them? That's the impression I get talking to cricket heads.

[zsayeed]

Sobers - He could bowl with both hands and bowl spin and pace! Batting to baad dilam.

[Zeeshan]

Where is Mamoodoolah? --not to confuse with m.dooley, new age guru

[Zeeshan]

by thee bye, voted for Gary, least you could've done was spell the name right

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by Zeeshan
by thee bye, voted for Gary, least you could've done was spell the name right

Garry might be spelled "Gary" conventionally but in Sir Garfield's case it has two r's.

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by Roey Haque
Isn't Garfield supposed to be like miles ahead of the rest of them? That's the impression I get talking to cricket heads.

some people think he wasn't that great of a bowler since his average was 34, strike rate was 91, didn't have any good bowlers in his team to compete for wickets thus should have had a better record etc. some think he is miles ahead, while others think he's a lot closer to the others or that some others are even ahead of him.

[Sohel]

Mushfiqur Rahman Babu

Sir Garry's a DISTANT fifth after Sanwar Hssain Sainnyah, Fahim Mntasir Shumit and Ziaur Rhman Jia (some also call him Zonee). That's why they call the fabled West Indian "Babu of the Caribbean".

[simon]

[AsifTheManRahman]

Sohel bhai, you forgot Banglar Flintoff Abul Hassan Raju, but more importantly, Mofizur Rahman Munna.

[Sohel]

Originally Posted by AsifTheManRahman
Sohel bhai, you forgot Banglar Flintoff Abul Hassan Raju, but more importantly, Mofizur Rahman Munna.

My bad about Banglar Flintoff Abul Hasan Raju and MRM. I suppose that'll make Sir Garry a little less distant 8th in my list. There was more than enough room between Ziaur Rahman Jia (some also call him Zonee) and Sir Garry. BTW they'll start to call everyone on Gowxa's poll "Wannabe Raju" after our man plays only 10 more games irrespective of format, and then unseats the Mushfiqur "The REAL Mushfique" Rahman Babu as the greatest all-rounder in the known and unknown universe.

[Zeeshan]

sohel-da ki prom picture naki avy-te? besh handchum handchum lagche

[Gowza]

surprised that sobers is leading by so much with only kallis getting 1 vote an no other votes to anyone else. expected imran to get quite a few votes.

[Tigers_eye]

Originally Posted by Roey Haque
Isn't Garfield supposed to be like miles ahead of the rest of them? That's the impression I get talking to cricket heads.

Do you have any doubt about it? What was the result of the voting?

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by Tigers_eye
Do you have any doubt about it? What was the result of the voting?

people say sobers is ahead of the rest mainly because he not only bowled swing but also two kinds of spin. it's great that he could do that but let's be real here, his bowling other than some years of his left arm swing really wasn't that great. now i'm not saying he couldn't bowl quality pace or spin, but he did it very inconsistently and that's why his bowling numbers aren't that good. people will say he was used to hold an end or he was made to be the spinner in matches conducive for pace bowling and vice versa, they'll also say his numbers aren't as great because he bowled spin and that lowers your stats as spinners almost always have lower strike rates and averages. but the fact is his average is still 34 and his strike rate is still over 90. he bowled purely spin for the first few of his tests as he was selected originally as a spinner, don't know the exact number but i've researched it before and the numbers were far from impressive. when you're comparing all time greats things like strike rates and averages matter.

i'm not trying to take anything away from sobers (he still makes my all time great XI) just his bowling gets a bit overrated, and like i said before it's not because he couldn't bowl quality, it's because he couldn't do it consistently.

the way i tend to rate all rounders is in the context of an all time team selection. who would be more useful as an all rounder (that means utilising both batting and bowling). in this regard sobers has to be considered a top 6 batsman who can be the 5th bowler. someone like imran is a #8 (maybe a #7) and an opening bowler. i'd say with that criteria imran is a more useful all rounder. of course if you bring fielding into it then imran suffers and sobers case strengthens.

for me the battle for the #1 all rounder is between sobers, imran and procter. miller misses the short list due to having that higher strike rate and slightly worse bowling and batting averages than imran. kallis misses the short list as he's basically sobers but a less dynamic batsman and only bowls pace whereas sobers adds extra with his spin. botham misses out as he couldn't sustain his quality for a decent enough period of time.

now with this short list procter probably has to bow out due to his lack of exposure at the test level. he probably would have been an ATG fast bowler, he probably would have averaged as much as imran with the bat (and got more centuries). he was a much more natural batsman with classy technique and powerful shots, he also bowled off spin at a good standard and was a good fielder. but as great of a cricketer he was at the end of the day we don't know how he would have held up over an entire test career. that doesn't stop me from selecting him in my all time team, as i'm willing to take the risk of his selection, but to select a true #1 you have to consider everything and unfortunately procter never had a full test career which as i said means we just don't know.

so it's down to sobers and imran. tbh i think they're pretty equal, on one day sobers would be more useful and on another imran would be.

[koushik]

Jack kallis

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[BengaliPagol]

Why isn't there an option for Mahmudullah?? Someone explain to me pls !