There's been a lot of talk on here recently about the merits of players as all rounders, true allrounders, bowling allrounders and the like. Many have talked about players getting places in their team for both disciplines.

Considering a great bowler (ie Lillee, McGrath etc) is seen to take on average about 5 wickets a test, and a great batsman scores about 75 runs a test, I decided to work out the number of times (as a percentage as well) the all rounders achieved this type of performance in test matches. As some batted quite low - and only batted once in a match I decided to take scoring 50 in their one innings of a test, or 75 runs in two innings as satisfying the achievement for that test. I compiled the number of times each player took five wickets in the test, scored 75 runs (or 50 in the only innings) and how many time they acheived this 'test' double. I think Wisden is slightly unfair in not listing these type of doubles, as many of the bowling all rounders do not have the opportunity to score a hundred (like Botham did) and many batting all-rounders really cannot take 10 wickets.

I then ranked the all rounders in the order of how often they achieved the double of 75 runs (50 in only innings) and 5 wickets per test.

Grieg 58 tests, 24 bat (51.8%) - 9 bowl (15.5%) - 7 both (12.1%)
Botham 102, 29 (28.4%) - 36 (35.3%) - 12 (11.7%)
Cairns 62, 19 (30.6%) - 18 (28.1%) - 7 (11.3%)
Sobers 93, 49 (52.7%) - 19 (20.4%) - 10 (10.8%)
Marshall 81, 10 (12.3%) - 43 (50.1%) - 8 (9.8%)
Benaud 63, 10 (15.9%) - 25 (39.7%) - 6 (9.5%)
Imran 88, 23 (26.1%) - 32 (36.3%) - 8 (9.1%)
Miller 55, 16 (29.1%) - 14 (25.4%) - 5 (9.1%)
Kallis 106, 55 (51.9%) - 10 (9.4%) - 7 (6.6%)
Hadlee 86, 11 (12.8%) - 41 (47.7%) - 5 (5.8%)
Pollock 107, 13 (12.1%) - 37 (34.6%) - 5 (4.7%)
Kapil Dev 131, 28 (21.4%) - 35 (26.7%) - 6 (4.6%)
Flintoff 67, 18 (26.9%) - 12 (18%) - 3 (4.5%)
Streak 65, 10 (15.4%) - 16 (24.6%) - 2 (3.1%)
Akram 104, 6 (5.7%) - 46 (44.2%) - 2 (1.9%)
Vaas 96, 7 (7.3%) - 27 (28.1%) - 1 (1%)

From this is it amazing to see that Grieg and Cairns (and Marshall for that matter) contributed with bat and ball (to a level expected of the best bowlers and batsmen) so often. Far more, than the more hpyed up allrounders who usually contriubted with bat OR ball (but rarely both).