What constitutes a 'genuine' allrounder?

[Redline]

Lots of names being thrown around but there are not many that meet my criteria.

To be a genuine allrounder you need you need to have expectations around your batting not just seen as valuable tailend runs. Probably batting top 6 maybe 7 in a strong team. People need to notice when you don't make runs.

From a bowling perspective again there needs to be an expectation that you take wickets. Not just bowling overs to give the main bowlers a break.

 

[Ohitsthatguy]

30 30 is a good gague

 

[Gethelred]

It's very hard IMO to properly measure an all rounder statistically. You have a bloke like Flintoff - who, at his best with either bat or ball, was an absolute force - who averaged 31 with the bat and 32 with the ball; for context, Pete Siddle averaged 30.67 with the ball, and there wouldn't be all that many people saying that Siddle was a better bowler than Flintoff was. Shane Watson is - by the 'your batting average minus your bowling average, positive number' - a true allrounder at test level; 35.2 with the bat, 33.68 with the ball.

The crux of the problem in my opinion is this: I have all the time in the world for a part timer with the ball - Joe Root, Travis Head, Aaron Finch, Virender Sehwag - or a pinch hitter like James Faulkner, Chris Cairns, Brett Lee, Pat Cummins, Ravi Ashwin, but I do not like having a set all rounder in the team whose stats with their primary skill aren't enough justification for them to be in the team alone. It's all very well for the Kallis', the Jadeja's and the Millers of the world, but if you're not taking wickets at less than 28 - 31 for an offie, as they have to tour Australia and we are where offies go to die - or making runs at upwards of 40, you're simply not as good as a primary option in your primary skill.

As such, true all rounders are exceedingly rare in my eyes. Keith Miller, Jadeja, Kallis, Sobers are the only ones I can think of.

 

[PhatBoy]

It's very hard IMO to properly measure an all rounder statistically. You have a bloke like Flintoff - who, at his best with either bat or ball, was an absolute force - who averaged 31 with the bat and 32 with the ball; for context, Pete Siddle averaged 30.67 with the ball, and there wouldn't be all that many people saying that Siddle was a better bowler than Flintoff was. Shane Watson is - by the 'your batting average minus your bowling average, positive number' - a true allrounder at test level; 35.2 with the bat, 33.68 with the ball.

The crux of the problem in my opinion is this: I have all the time in the world for a part timer with the ball - Joe Root, Travis Head, Aaron Finch, Virender Sehwag - or a pinch hitter like James Faulkner, Chris Cairns, Brett Lee, Pat Cummins, Ravi Ashwin, but I do not like having a set all rounder in the team whose stats with their primary skill aren't enough justification for them to be in the team alone. It's all very well for the Kallis', the Jadeja's and the Millers of the world, but if you're not taking wickets at less than 28 - 31 for an offie, as they have to tour Australia and we are where offies go to die - or making runs at upwards of 40, you're simply not as good as a primary option in your primary skill.

As such, true all rounders are exceedingly rare in my eyes. Keith Miller, Jadeja, Kallis, Sobers are the only ones I can think of.

Needed a bigger sample size but Faulkner easily as well (Aubrey, not James)


Confident that in any other nation Rakheem The Dream would join this list

 

[beatnik]

This might be controversial but I think Shane Watson was close to being a genuine all-rounder…obviously injuries limited his effectiveness/success at an international level but on potential alone, he was pretty close to being the sort of cricketer who could demand a spot as a bat or as a 3rd seamer…probably a batting all-rounder overall but gee, when fit and in conditions that suited, he was a very dangerous bowler

I would have loved to see what he could have been if he’d been consistently fit through his career…I can see why the selectors gave him chance after chance to come good

 

[Gough]

This

I genuinely loved watching the guy bowl. It was such a pity it was almost invariably a ‘well **** we are in shock that Donald and Pollock and Ntini and Steyn and Morkel and Philander didn’t work… better let Jake have a go’ situation with him because in literally any team of his era not called SA or Australia he would have been bowling enough to take closer to 400 wickets you would have to assume, even if it did maybe reduce his batting output. He was such a mentally strong cricketer I don’t think it would have fazed him much anyway.

It was actually almost the reverse with Pollock and the bat.

I’ve mentioned in this forum before that I read somewhere once that someone tried to look through all the batsmen that played during Lara’s era to find someone that looked a little bit like him in style and had some of the same strokeplay and the one they actually came up with was Shaun Pollock with the way he had the real high backlift and the back foot going across towards gully and lightning fast hands through the ball.

But again like Kallis he played in a side that in theory (not always in practice when they came up against Australia during Pollock’s era) was generally stacked with good batsmen so he was never needed to bat any higher or with more responsibility.

Pollock would have had an extra test century to his name but can blame the Indian f**kwits for the carry on after the ball tampering incident during the 2001 tour where they refused Mike Denness’ charges and the third test was stripped of test status.

On the all rounder subject, Kallis himself was robbed of another century from that match as well, and a couple of wickets.

My cousin knocked about in the same Cape Town private school set as Kallis when she was at school and she's always said it's a bloody good thing he was good at cricket.

 

[PhatBoy]

My cousin knocked about in the same Cape Town private school set as Kallis when she was at school and she's always said it's a bloody good thing he was good at cricket.

Hahahaha yeah he’s never ever struck me as the sort that was going to split the atom

 

[Rabish Binney]

There is one all rounder who was generally high class at all facets. Not just a bowler who could bat ok or vice versa. Alas he never got a shot at Test cricket.

I am talking about Clive Rice. FC figures of 26331 runs at 40.95 and 930 wickets at 22.39 indicate a real talent.

Absolute shame that international cricket lovers did not get to see Clive Rice play test cricket.

 

[PhatBoy]

Jomel Warrican

 

[sr36]

not sure this one's been done before, but while things are a little quite - thought i'd start the ball rolling.


There are plenty of 'white ball' allrounders but what constitutes a 'genuine' allrounder?

• is it someone who earns a spot in the XI in one specific skillset? (bats in the top 6, or one of the 4 bowlers)
• is it someone who does a 'bit of both' and doesn't hold a spot in the XI on either skillset alone?
• is it the old age rule - batting average minus bowling average (must be positive)?
• how do we label them - 'genuine' 'batting allrounder' 'bowling allrounder' 'white ball allrounder' etc
• players that have been picked as a bowler in a test side and on other occasions as a batter (and vice versa) - do they automatically qualify?
• does 30+/30- qualify or 35+/35-, 40+/30- or 25+/35- (test averages) do we all draw the line somewhere?
• do they have to take an average of 2 wickets per tests and/or bowl a specific amount of overs per test match?

I think it varies depending on what your team wants. Australia want a 5th bowler, so in Australia it's a bloke who can bat in the top 6 and bowl some solid overs without a significant drop off in pressure. We want them to be dropped if they're not batting at a top 6 standard, so they need to be able to justify their selection with their batting - but that might change if we had a keeper who could justify a top 6 batting gig.

But with some other teams, they're looking for other things depending on what they have in their team already.

 

[PhatBoy]

The strength of the team comes into it as well I guess. And that sort of follows on to the point made by sr36 of what you want from your all rounder.

A weaker team who doesn’t necessarily have the batting or bowling strength to regularly win matches, might not be looking for a player that is going to average 40+ with the bat and be a good back up bowling option (though they would obviously take one of course). Take the Kiwis during Cairns’ era for example. By numbers he wasn’t a ‘great’ all rounder but he was certainly one of their only match winners of his era and one of the only players they had who could swing a game towards his side so his value to the team was far greater than the 30 he averaged with bat and ball because of the sort of player he was, in a team that had very few damaging players.

In some of the sides he’s played in Stokes is a very obvious example of that too when England’s batting has been Root and Cook and nothing else, Anderson and/or Broad with the ball and no back up.

 

[sr36]

The strength of the team comes into it as well I guess. And that sort of follows on to the point made by sr36 of what you want from your all rounder.

A weaker team who doesn’t necessarily have the batting or bowling strength to regularly win matches, might not be looking for a player that is going to average 40+ with the bat and be a good back up bowling option (though they would obviously take one of course). Take the Kiwis during Cairns’ era for example. By numbers he wasn’t a ‘great’ all rounder but he was certainly one of their only match winners of his era and one of the only players they had who could swing a game towards his side so his value to the team was far greater than the 30 he averaged with bat and ball because of the sort of player he was, in a team that had very few damaging players.

In some of the sides he’s played in Stokes is a very obvious example of that too when England’s batting has been Root and Cook and nothing else, Anderson and/or Broad with the ball and no back up.

Yeah, definitely a place for an explosive player in both skills who might not have the consistency to average a specialist in either skill. Cairns, Flintoff, etc. They probably impact more games than lots of specialists do.

 

[sherb]

At f-c level, Richie Benaud was definitely a genuine all-rounder.

11,719 runs @ 36.50 with 23 hundreds & 61 fifties
945 wickets @ 24.73 with 56 fivefors and 9 tenfors
To round it off he averaged nearly just under a catch a game (254 catches in 259 games)

Unfortunately, his f-c batting record didn't carry through to Test cricket.

 

[sherb]

Clive Rice was definitely a "what if" regarding Test cricket - SA's isolation cost him unfortunately.

26331 f-c runs at 40.95, 48*100, 137*50
930 wickets @ 22.49, 23*5w, 1*10w

Procter's another, he only played 7 Tests. F-C batting average of 36.01, bowling average 19.53.

 

[PhatBoy]

Cairns was one of the first players I recall when Brett Lee burst onto the scene who looked like he relished facing him. Lee did get him a few times during that drawn series here in 2001 but generally after Cairns had done a bit of damage and always caught. He had a penchant for taking on his short one and managed to connect as often as he didn’t.

Also recall an anecdote allegedly during the series when he hit his century against the Aussies at the Basin in 2000 during yet another test the Kiwis had at their mercy (Cairns led a recovery from 5-nothing and 6-130 to 280 all out, before Australia turned 4-40 into 450) - they botched that one, then in the following test at Wellington where he played that famous shot off Warne where he basically rotated his stance while the ball was halfway down the wicket, Warne’s ripped a big leg break into the rough outside his leg stump and Cairns with his new stance has calmly played what is now essentially a lofted straight drive and deposited the ball into the adjacent parkland over backward square leg.

Ponting or whoever was at first slip has supposedly turned to Gilchrist or whoever was nearby and simply said ‘that’s the best shot I’ve ever seen.’

It’s at about 4:24 in this video

 

[Plugger35]

Chris Cairns was one of the few batsmen that didn't fear Warne.

He walked to the crease in a match against Australia and told Warne "i'm going to smash you out of the f***ing park" and he did.

 

[PhatBoy]

Chris Cairns was one of the few batsmen that didn't fear Warne.

He walked to the crease in a match against Australia and told Warne "i'm going to smash you out of the f***ing park" and he did.

Yeah he made mincemeat of him in that series, averaged just under 60. Hit 35 fours and 10 sixes in those last two tests.