It seems to me that most all-rounders are clearly better at either batting or bowling? Of the all-rounders in this tournament, who has the best combination of batting and bowling skills? From a novice POV, the ones that come to mind for me are Ben Stokes, Moeen Ali, and Hardik Pandya.
It’s the fundamental asymmetry of the sport. Bowling is much harder work. Batsmen have much longer careers. Many allrounders start as bowlers and progressively become batsmen who bowl par-time. Steve Smith made his Test debut as a leg spinner who could bat a bit.
The “best” allrounders hold their place as a first choice bowler who can periodically win (more rarely save) games.
None on show are Gary Sobers but Jason Holder is my nominee.
Two to watch from the West Indies are Andre Russell and Jason Holder. Shakib Al Hasan of Bangladesh is the #1 ranked in ODIs, though his bowling isn’t really suited to English conditions. (Mind you, the ICC ranking system for all-rounders would appear to be somewhat strange - #2 on the list is Rashid Khan, who bats at 9 for Afghanistan).
I’d say Jacques Kallis was the last of the true great all rounders. Good enough to make any team as a batsman or a bowler.
New Zealand quietly chalked up another two points. Given we’ll probably lose a few games to rain 13 or 14 points will probably be enough to make the semis so they’re nearly half way there on six.
The term all rounder is misused frequently. A true all rounder is a player who can hold his place in the side for either batting or bowling (or other attribute such as wicket keeping). and there have been very few of those. What we see in most teams is a batsman who can bowl a few overs or a bowler who may get late order runs.
As has been mentioned, Jaques Kallis was an all rounder as was Garfield Sobers (batting, pace bowling, spin bowling). Others would probably be Ian Botham, Keith Miller and Adam Gilchrist.
A much better performance from England and never really in doubt. that was the best ODI international score at the ground by over 40 runs, the 7th highest in the history of the competition and by far England’s best world cup score.
Australia - India today, always an interesting match-up
Jason Holder is probably the best all rounder in this competition,able to do both, but I don’t think even he would be picked just for his batting.
I’ll tell you how interesting I think it was after the result. <wink>
I’ve probably skipped a few- Tony Grieg for instance- but they are indeed rare items. I believe Gary Gilmour could have been a very good all rounder if had laid off the grog and trained.
I’m pretty sure that, allowed to play Test cricket, Mike Procter would have been at least the second best all-rounder ever. His first class bowling average over 23 years was under 20, he averaged 36 with the bat. His highest score was 254 which was his 6th consecutive hundred. He was the second man to hit 6 sixes in an over. And on and on.
Oh yes, I missed him - he was fantastic. I tend to remember the Pollocks and Barry Richards and I overlooked him from that series when Australia was thrashed.
India post 352, a big score, but I can’t help thinking it might not be enough - I think Aus will challenge the total. Should be a good finish!
I watched the first innings and it would be a hell of a chase. Unprecedented by a good amount in the CWC and at this ground. But at least Australia know what needs to be done. Would be devastating for India, because they chose to bat and played it exactly the way they wanted to.
One of these two would need to score a really big hundred. I don’t think it’s on the cards.
I don’t think Aus are going fast enough here, they have it all to do.
Bigger over there.
And Australia can’t catch them. All out on the last ball. Great match by the Indian bowlers.
It’s always hard to tell whether it’s great bowling or score pressure in a game like this, but certainly India’s batsmen handled Australia’s bowlers much better than the other way round. At one point I thought India might end up about 320-3, but they had great acceleration at the end and the bowlers never let Australia get away. Warner was never at the races, which didn’t help his side at all.
Oh, and will someone please do something about the zing bails? It’s hard enough for the bowlers in modern ODI cricket without randomly giving batsmen lives because the stumps are set up wrong.
I’ve no problem with a visual aid but I’ve assumed that both stumps and bails must be of a standard weight and behave in the same way as non-flashy ones. If the bails are heavier than usual then that does change the nature of “out” decisions but apparently they are not heavier than “windy” bails. Go figure. Of course pure weight is not always the sole issue as the composition of the stumps may also change the nature of energy transfer but I don’t know anything about that.
There have always been cases of bails not dislodging. Anyone who has played the game will have seen such incidents. So the question is, are these bails really harder to dislodge or is it just that we have a visual key that emphasises the times when they are hit and don’t fall when previously we just didn’t see it?
Thing is, they can’t really change it right now, seeing as everyone is playing with the same kit the most they can do is change it for the semis.
South Africa vs WIndies game today. South Africa will be looking to spark their campaign into life, and a loss here would probably see the end of any chance of sneaking into the semis. The semi final spots are still wide open though, and a win for WI puts them in a decent position.
I reckon WI will take the game!
I was listening to The Cricketer Podcast* the other day, and Simon Hughes was saying that he’s in a truck where all the stumps are “charged” to ensure that the lights come on throughout the game, so he’s got his hands on some of them. Apparently, it’s not the bails so much - he suggested that the weight of the bails was somewhere between normal and bails for windy conditions - but the groove in the top of the stumps is a little deeper than would normally be the case and, more pertinently, the stumps are made out of some sort of composite material which - to his mind - is heavier and more rigid than a normal wooden stump. He is hypothesising that the stumps are the actual problem - that they’re capable of absorbing more energy from a ball without dislodging the bails than would otherwise be the case.
*Disclaimer: I listened to this once and may have got some of the finer details wrong.