Where have all the All-rounders gone?

It has literally been years since I wrote a blog entry. I guess that’s because I  have been very busy with life and also it does seem like a dying medium. Nevertheless, I had a thought and I wanted to share it so here goes nothing.

I love Test Cricket and have been enthralled with the West Indies tour of England. I didn’t think I would miss cricket that much when the pandemic hit but boy was I wrong. The series is shaping up nicely thanks to the exploits of Ben Stokes in the second Test. I think Ben Stokes is a wonderful cricketer and has developed into a genuine allrounder. Gone are the days that we though f him as a good bowler who could come in late in the innings and give the ball a good slog.

Arise Sir. Ben Stokes!

It’s obvious that he is the number one test all-rounder today. But does that mean as much as we think? If we look at the list of the best test all-rounders today we find a very interesting picture.

The chart above gives us the top 10 all-rounders today. Besides the top 3, it’s hard to recognize the others at true all-rounder. Even number Jadeja at number 3 prefers to be seen as a batsman above all else. The problem becomes even worse once we get past the top 10. The West Indian fast bowler Kemar Roach is apparently the 13th best all-rounder in the world even though he is only the 16th best fast bowler in the world, keep in mind his highest score is 41.

So where have all the all-rounders gone? When I was growing up they were everywhere. South Africa had three of them in Kallis, Pollock and Klausner. Austalia had Steve Waugh who started his career as an all-rounder and later Andrew Symonds. England had Flintoff who was the successor to Ian Botham and the predecessor to stokes. Even India a land not known for producing world-class all-rounders (except for Kapil Dev) had unearthed a young Irfan Pathan.

Kallis was the greatest all-rounder I have ever seen!

If we take the clock back to before my time the list becomes even more illustrious. Take for example Imran Khan, Richard Hadlee, Kith Miller and Gary Sobers. It looks like in the past we had a plethora of wonderful all-rounders and today the cupboard is comparatively bare.

So what has happened? Could it be that we have encouraged cricketers to specialize as either a bowler or batsman that we have robbed the world of its all-rounders? Or is this just a moment in time that we lack quality all-rounders?

What do you think?