ALL-ROUNDERS are the most valuable of all cricketers. In the era of one-day
cricket, no side is complete without at least two, and in two-innings
cricket a man whose batting average is higher than his bowling is
potentially a priceless asset.
Not many England players since 1953 have truly been worth their place both as
a batsman and a bowler. Add his captaincy to the equation and Ray
Illingworth came close, perhaps, but the only serious candidates are Trevor
Bailey, Tony Greig and Ian Botham.
The field for the Rest of the World team is acres wider. At no previous period
of the game has there been such a galaxy of talent as is represented by the
post-Coronation crop of Keith Miller, Richie Benaud, Alan Davidson, Garry
Sobers, Kapil Dev, Imran Khan, Richard Hadlee, Mike Procter, Chris Cairns
and Jacques Kallis. Abdul Razzaq, too, has the ability and temperament to be
mentioned in the same breath.
There is little mystery about the decisions to be taken. Nevertheless, to make
them is to feel much as arbitrators and judges as Pontius Pilate must have
done when sending down innocent men. Take any six of this group, put them in
to bat or on to bowl in any order, give them a wicketkeeper, a couple of
spinners for variety and two opening batsmen to pave the way, and who else,
frankly, would you want?
Perhaps I exaggerate in one or two cases. Benaud, even more than Illingworth,
deserves his astute and enterprising captaincy to be included in the mixture
that made him a great all-round asset for Australia, but his batting would
not have earned him a place by itself had he not also been one of the great
leg spin bowlers, whose action was close to perfection. Davidson, too, broad
shouldered, match-winning, left-arm swing bowler and brilliant fielder
though he was, only occasionally excelled as a batsman in the highest
company (five fifties in 44 Tests).
There are no such doubts about Miller, who could still swing any match, with
bat or ball, for some years after 1953. By then he had played the most
glorious innings of his colourful career, spreading joy to thousands at
Lord's by hitting 185 in 165 minutes in one of the Victory Tests of 1945
within hours of touching down after one of his night-time journeys as a
fighter pilot.
He hit seven sixes on that occasion and his athletic grace, good looks and
joie de vivre made him a cynosure in almost every female eye. As a bowler he
was a man of moods, sometimes quicker than Ray Lindwall, often irresistible.
He took his 170 Test wickets at 22 and averaged 36 as a batsman.
Let us leave Sobers for a moment and consider the extraordinary era during
which Imran, Kapil Dev and Hadlee vied with Botham to be the best
all-rounder in the world. Hadlee made 15 Test fifties for New Zealand, often
thrilling and spectacular ones, and two hundreds, but an average of 27 tells
the truth that in Test company he was not a true all-rounder. As one of the
greatest bowling artists of them all, he will be considered again for one of
the fast-bowling places.
There is no doubting the all-round credentials of Kapil Dev or Imran. Kapil
Dev was certainly capable of holding down a regular batting place had he not
been obliged to carry the India attack tirelessly for so long. One has only
to recall two of his innings in England to establish the point. At Tunbridge
Wells on a juicy pitch in the 1983 World Cup, India were ten for four when
he came in to bat against Zimbabwe. Not long afterwards they were 17 for
five, then 78 for seven. Kapil Dev scored 175, peppering the rhododendrons
with sixes, and India went on to win both that match and the World Cup under
his captaincy. Given the subsequent Indian love-affair (or enduring
marriage) with one-day cricket, it was an innings that changed the course of
history.
At Lord's in 1990, when India were nine wickets down needing 24 to make
England bat again, Kapil Dev's response was to drive four successive balls
from Eddie Hemmings for six, every stroke cleanly hit. Kapil Dev the bowler
finished with 434 wickets from his 131 games, his classical action both
defying the trend towards front-on delivery and enabling him to keep fit
even when playing some county cricket and 225 one-day internationals.
Procter was potentially an even greater cricketer, an explosive bowler and
dynamic, classical batsman, but Imran had more opportunity to display his
prowess on the grand stage. As with Miller, there were days when his heart
was not in it, but when it was he was magnificent. Here was another
heart-throb and another natural athlete with a regal air who swung the ball
at searing pace and hit it with the power of a kicking horse.
He would seize the moment. At Sydney as a young man in 1976-77, his hostility
and his 12 wickets for 165 enabled Pakistan to win a Test on Australian soil
for the first time. At Headingley in 1987, his ten for 73 in the match, and
seven for 40 in the second innings, overwhelmed England. He made sure the
series was subsequently won by hitting a magisterial 118 in the last Test,
at the Oval. He seemed to lead Pakistan as of right, even when he was not
the official captain.
IF IMRAN, like Curzon, was a most superior person, he and all who have
followed must give the all-rounder's palm to Sobers. With Sir Garry, above
all, it was the style as much as the substance.
Never was there a more natural cricketer. When he drove, even sometimes when
he pulled, the bat went through 360 degrees. He saw the ball so early there
was time for it to do so.
Bowling his left-arm quick stuff, his action was a joy, the eyes looking at
the batsman behind a right-arm flung high, before a full wheel of the body.
He could bamboozle with the chinaman or spin it viciously with the fingers,
and to Lance Gibbs he was as sharp round the corner at backward short leg as
Tony Lock once was for Jim Laker. He was not a great captain and his 235
Test wickets cost 34 each, but no one has got so many wickets and at the
same time averaged as high as 57 with the bat. So, Sobers it must be.
And it must be Botham, too. If you wanted someone to bat for your life, Bailey
was your man: the barnacle, the most obdurate stonewaller since Dick Barlow
in the 19th century, utterly reliable when the going was tough. He was, too,
a fast-medium bowler of high quality and a fine fielder.
Although he was more aggressive and certainly more impulsive, Greig was in
some ways similar: he thrived on challenges. He met the fire of Lillee and
Thomson with brimstone in Brisbane in 1974-75; lost no pride even when West
Indies made him eat his words in 1976; and was arguably as good as Botham at
second slip - which is to say superb.
Greig was another born to lead and although he was probably at his best on the
way up, switching from fast-medium seamers to off breaks to inspire England
to victory in Trinidad in 1973-74, he was promising well as captain until
Kerry Packer called, not least with his courageous century at Calcutta in
1976-77 when he was ill and conditions suited India's spinners.
Botham, to some extent, cashed in on the absence of many fine players during
two years of World Series Cricket, but such prodigious talent allied to rare
physical strength would have pushed its way past all barriers anyway.
Until his back pains started and his early looseness went, he was a quite
outstanding fast swing bowler. His innings at Headingley and Old Trafford in
1981 are the stuff of legend, his slip-catching was consistently good, often
brilliant, and, through all the vicissitudes, his final figures - 14 Test
hundreds and 383 wickets at 28 - settle all arguments.
