Surely in that case then Botham should be the best allrounder, doesnt he have the most 5 wicket hauls and hundreds of any all rounder (and the most catches). That to me is what an allrounder is about batting, bowling and fielding.

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Mark.

A century is surely just an aribtary statistic and should not really be given any more credence than an 87 not out. This was the point of my original analysis. Botham did score more hundreds than the other all rounders of his time, but without often batting at 5 and 6 and without other factors (ie Dilley at Leeds in 81) he would have had to settle for more minor contributions. That is certainly what Pollock (the highest scoring number 9 in history) has had to accept.

Don't get me wrong, between 77 and 81, Botham probably reached the highest level of achievement with bat and ball we have ever (and will probably ever) seen. He was the best bowler and the third best batsman in the team. He would have been picked for both. However, in the second half of his career he was our equivalent of Andrew Symonds at test level - not good enough as bowler or batsman - only picked to balance out the side (as were all his successors like David Capel)

Welcome to the forum Pakistanboy.

Razzaq's done well in the ODIs, but at Test level he hasn't really done enough in either field to be considered a "Great." Other than Imran, the only other Pakistani allrounders which could possibly be great would be Mushtaq Mohamed, or possibly Wasim Akram if you consider him to be an allrounder.

Sobers then Kallis.

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Bill Ponsford - The only one who could play in Bradman’s company and make it a duet.

A win or a loss is only valid depending on the 22 players on the field on the day. It is completely meaningless speculating "what would have happened if ******* had bee there instead of ****** and so on. India won on the day fair & square and that's that.

I believe Cairns missed about as many games through injury as he played Andy (I hope that sentence made sense). I wonder also if Cairns is also overlooked due to traditionalists tut tutting his agressive batting and tendency for whacking the ball down the road.

Otherwise nice job on the statistics althoguh it's far too late right now for me to divulge them properly.

You simply can't rank Kallis anywhere near the greatness of Sobers...stats can lie and indeed they do in this case. Imran Khan is the closest in ability, but Sobers was once in a generation cricketer as Gilchrist is now

And of course, you are telling stone-carved gospel truth! I can see that Kallis' "selfishness" is getting under quite a few skins. In case you missed it 229, he just scored yet another century and took 2 for 11 to boot.

Nostromo, I rate Kallis very highly as a bat, despite some reservations about his "selfishness" but IMO he isnt a great allrounder. He only has 4 or 5 5 wicket hauls and to be honest would never have gotten selected for SA as a bowler alone.

He is an all time top bat, a good fielder and use useful 4th seamer. But he isnt in Sobers, Bothams, Imrans or Kapils class and an allrounder.

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Mark.

I am sorry, but I do not agree to that view. Sobers is a class on his own, but Botham, Imran (notwithstanding his elevated averages in later tests) or Kapil would never have been chosen for their batting alone if they could not bowl a ball....to think otherwise would be completely illogical. Each of those might have some match-turning innings, but there were other more reliable specialist batsmen to choose from. I agree completely that Kallis would not have been chosen only on his bowling merit, but he is considerably better than those others (except Sobers) as a batsman and not all that far behind as a bowler. Therefore, to exclude him simply because some of you don't like his "face" (which is exactly what you are all doing, no matter how you try to gloss it over) is totally meaningless. You guys quote statistics left, right and centre when it supports your point of view, but when it doesn't - like in Kallis' case - everyone bleats how statistics lie.