Best Allrounder of all time

[ZoraxDoom]

Miller only took 3.1 wickets per match which shows he didn't have good stamina while Imran still managed 4.1 despite not bowling in his last 7 tests(he was 40 yrs then)

Umm...no it doesn't. Miller didn't decide how many overs he bowled in a match; there is no way you can say his stamina was poor based on this evidence. It is completely possible that he didn't get take as many wickets per match because he wasn't needed as much as Imran was (the rest of the Aus attack took more wickets than the rest of the Pak attack) and thus called upon to bowl less.

 

[alexczarn]

Imran Khan.

 

[SLICKR392]

Imran Khan +2
At present, in current form I would chose Broad over Kallis.

 

[VC the slogger]

For the best all-rounder, I would pick Sir Garfield Sobers.He was terrific with the bat as shown by his 365 not out and equally deadly with the ball.He was a good fielder too.Someone who can bat classically,bowl so well and field well such as Sobers has to be the best.

 

[alexczarn]

For the best all-rounder, I would pick Sir Garfield Sobers.He was terrific with the bat as shown by his 365 not out and equally deadly with the ball.He was a good fielder too.Someone who can bat classically,bowl so well and field well such as Sobers has to be the best.

And if he could keep, he would be the absolute true allrounder!!

 

[Owzat]

^Yah Keith Miller certainly had a lot of responsibility. He batted #5 and opened the bowling. Very few of the great ARs have done that. Sobers and Kallis weren't good enough bowlers to open, and Botham and Imran batted further down for most of their careers.



This is the page you are after:
Records | Test matches | All-round records | A hundred and five wickets in an innings | ESPN Cricinfo

For those who are too lazy, only 4 players have done it more than once:
5 times - Ian Botham
2 times - Jacques Kallis, Garry Sobers, Mushtaq Mohammad

Another good one is 250 runs and 20 wickets in a series:
Records | Test matches | All-round records | 250 runs and 20 wickets in a series | ESPN Cricinfo
Those who have done that more than once:
3 times - Ian Botham & Garry Sobers
2 times - Keith Miller, Kapil Dev

Going by those you'd have to say Botham had the most influence on BOTH disciplines at once. Botham's also the only guy to ever have at least 10 100s and at least 10 5fers. Sobers only had 6 5fers, Kallis 5, Miller had 7.

Thanks for that. Some get way too wrapped up in single aspects like averages, what you have to remember is what an all-rounder does and equal contributions don't just have to be 30 average with bat and ball. While we can all speculate on average wickets or runs per match, circumstances and chances are different. Imran didn't bowl so much towards the end of his career, I think a lot of players are also viewed as all-rounders who were more very good back-up bowlers but didn't bowl enough.

Number of overs per match played might be a better distinguishing figure between all-rounder and effective back-up. Hadlee for me was a strong bowler who was a handy lower order batsman, Sobers stronger in his second string but still not mr all-rounder. Kallis I'd argue has developed but is he truly an all-rounder or just has the ability that he could have been one...........................?

 

[sifter132]

Yeah it tough with guys like Sobers and Kallis to know how good their bowling was and how much of it was based on their team. Sobers bowled more than Kallis, but that's because Kallis was always fighting with guys like Donald, Pollock, Ntini and Steyn for the ball. Sobers had Hall and Griffith for a bit, then Lance Gibbs. If Kallis had been born an Indian he'd have seen a lot more overs

I think objectively though there hasn't been a truly great all-rounder. Sobers and Kallis probably wouldn't be good enough as specialist bowlers, ditto Hadlee and Shaun Pollock as batsmen. The 'purer' all-rounders had their problems too. Imran wasn't really able to combine his batting and bowling peak together, Botham was a great matchwinner, but was very inconsistent and guys like Flintoff and Cairns were always dogged by injury to stop them achieving their best. That's why it makes for an always interesting argument I guess.

 

[Fenil]

I don't think Freddie (Flintoff) comes anywhere near to being the best allrounder of all time but yes, Botham and Imran were brilliant and I've watched them playing for quite a few matches. Only thing against them is they didn't perform well in both batting and bowling in the same match very often but that quite understandable and Botham has done that (scoring runs and taking wickets in a series) often than any other allrounder as far I now. So, at this point of discussion, I'd personally rate Botham as the best allrounder.

PS: The debate continues...

 

[Adarsh]

I don't know why we are arguing about this. Clearly it's Ravichandran Ashwin.

 

[Ahmad94]

I might say Afridi but once again because i am a fan, I can't say about cricketers before 2000 because i haven't watch them.

 

[Fenil]

I don't know why we are arguing about this. Clearly it's Ravichandran Ashwin.

Thank God you didn't mentioned, Virat Kohli for his excellent batting and deadly medium pace...

 

[Hybrid]

Kallis, Sobers, Miller, and then Imran.

Hopefully Kallis improves both his average a little more before retiring.

Sobers and Kallis probably wouldn't be good enough as specialist bowlers

Neither would Miller and Imran as specialist batsmen.

 

[puddleduck]

Do either me or Zorax have to again point out that Sobers was initially picked as a seamer and became a spinner because that's what the team needed? I don't? Good.

 

[sifter132]

Was it not the other way around? Started as a specialist spinner - and not a very good one let's be honest, then learned to bowl swing when he played in England? Sobers bowled a lot of overs, so I suppose he was playing as a specialist bowler and it certainly helped the Windies team balance to have him bowling all those overs. But in my opinion a specialist bowler would have done better than Sobers, his S/R was over 90. He was supposed to be a super talented all-rounder, surely he could have gotten his wickets a bit more regularly??

And Hybrid, Keith Miller batted at #5 for Australia and always a top 5 player for NSW and Vic. So yeah I'd say he was playing as a batsman. But I'm happy to admit that like Sobers with his bowling, Miller's record as a specialist batsman wasn't really that impressive - well his Test record at least, in Shield cricket he averaged over 50. It was really Bradman who started exploiting Miller's bowling abilities and suddenly they found he was pretty good at that too.

 

[puddleduck]

No, he was a seamer (both seam and swing in fact depending on conditions), and a mighty good one. He then, at the instruction of his captain, learnt to bowl very useful left arm spin (either wrist or finger depending on conditions) because they already had some equally devastating quick bowlers. He was often brought on to bowl when good batsmen had seen off some very good bowlers. He also never bowled at tailenders, so he never got easy wickets. Pretty much all of them are top order set batsmen

Sobers stats only tell half the story of a truely remarkable individual, and too many times on this forum have I had to explain it to people who must have done better things with their childhood then read as much old clippings and stories about him as they could Which is fair enough, since they wouldn't then spend half their time banging their heads against walls trying to explain that Sober's bowling numbers don't tell everything!

----------

"In fact, his bowling career can be divided into three distinct parts: till 1960, he bowled quite sparingly, taking only 43 wickets in 34 matches, without a single five-for. Then came the best passage for him as a bowler, during which period he delivered two of his most incisive performances: at Headingley in 1966 he returned figures of 5 for 41 and 3 for 39 to help West Indies win by an innings; at the Gabba a couple of years later, his orthodox left-arm spin was good enough to give him a second-innings haul of 6 for 73 and bundle Australia out for 240 as they chased 366 for victory."

A quote from an article for you - full article here Stats analysis: Garry Sobers: An allrounder like no other | Specials | Cricinfo Magazine | ESPN Cricinfo

----------

Another good passage from that article -

"And in the eight years when Sobers was at the peak on his bowling powers, he was among the best in that aspect too: only three bowlers took more than 100 wickets at an averge lower than Sobers' 27.93. West Indies had a pretty useful attack during that period too: Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith took care of the fast-bowling duties, while Lance Gibbs was the number one spinner. Since Sobers obviously wasn't the leading fast bowler or spinner, he was more of a support act, and hence seldom got the opportunity to bowl fast with the wind or slow against it. Later in his career with West Indies' fast-bowling resources dwindling, Sobers bowled long spells with defensive fields, but he managed that too without his bowling stats suffering too much."