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The problem with all-rounders Part 1: How do you judge them?

14th January, 2015
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Michael Clarke's accurate bowling could be missed more than his batting. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)
Roar Guru
14th January, 2015
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1122 Reads

In recent years Australia’s cricket selectors have gone all-rounder crazy.

In September 2014 chief selector Rod Marsh announced that every team needed an all rounder. Indeed, some think that you should build a whole team around them.

So we’ve got lots of talk about whether we play Shane Watson or Mitchell Marsh, or Watson and Marsh, or maybe Glenn Maxwell and James Faulkner, or even Dan Christian or Moises Henriques.

But no one ever seems able to explain a crucial issue – how can you judge if an all rounder is actually doing their job?

In one dayers and T20s it’s easy – all rounders do the late innings slogging/rescue missions, and ‘keep an end tight’ with the ball. But what about Test matches? Specialist batsmen and bowlers and wicketkeepers have simple KPIs that everyone can understand – are they making runs? Taking wickets? Spilling catches? But all rounders seem to fall into a separate category.

They don’t have to make as many runs because they compensate with wickets, or they don’t have to take as many wickets because they score runs, or they’re allowed to let through a few more wides because they make runs. But exactly how much leeway is an all rounder allowed?

It’s complicated by the fact that the definition of what constitutes an all rounder seems to vary. You have batting all-rounders, bowling all-rounders, genuine all-rounders, potential all-rounders, bits-and-pieces all-rounders, players who are genuine one-day all-rounders and/or first-class all-rounders and/or Test all-rounders and/or T20 all-rounders, but not necessarily any of the other.

You have to average over 30 with the bat and under 30 with the ball or you don’t, your batting average has to be higher than your bowling average or it doesn’t, you can be a wicketkeeper good with the bat, or not, and you have to be good at fielding as well or you don’t.

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They can bat in the top six or not, above the wicketkeeper or below or be the wicketkeeper, or not, open the bowling or not, have a specific job in the side or not.

Watson started in the Australian Test team batting at seven and bowling at five, then he batted at six, then he came back as an opening batsman who could bowl, only he began to bowl less and less – so much so he became a specialist batsman, then his batting form dropped away to the point where he declared unilaterally in South Africa last year that he was an all rounder who needed to bowl to keep his place. In other words, he didn’t have to score as many runs as a proper batsman because he bowls – and presumably he didn’t have to take as many wickets as a proper bowler because he bats.

Mitchell Marsh was picked to bat at six in the Test side with a first-class batting average of 29 on the basis of a bowling average around the same, despite averaging less than two wickets a game.

Maxwell has batted at eight, seven, two and three for Australia, and bowled at five and six, and never got a first-class five-for.

Steve Smith began his Test career as a bowling all-rounder, then became a batting all-rounder, now he’s a specialist batsman who rolls his arm over for a few overs and no one seems to regard him as an all rounder.

Michael Clarke has actually won several Test matches for Australia with his bowling but he seems to have escaped all-rounder classification.

Occasionally Mitchell Johnson does something spectacular with the bat, and people talk him up as an all rounder, then he has a string of failures and they shut up.

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Smith, Clarke and Johnson are specialists now – which means they have a specific job, that they can be held accountable for. Marsh, Maxwell and Watson’s position is vaguer. Okay so they’re allowed to score a few less runs because of their bowling – how many less? Five? Ten? How many wickets do they have to take? Or if it’s about keeping things tight, do we go off the economy rate? Or do we have to wait until they score no runs and take no wickets like Moises Henriques (and Phil Carlson and Simon O’Donnell and Graeme Watson and Trevor Laughlin and Peter Sleep and Maxwell) before we can drop them?

After four Tests Mitchell Marsh averages 37 with the bat but 164 with the ball – has he been a success or not? After 56 Tests Shane Watson averages 35 with the bat and less than two wickets per Test with the ball – does the latter justify the former?

That’s the thing with all rounders – they’re so hard to judge. And the thing is, they’re not even necessary, not at Test level. I realise that’s a heretical position at the moment, but the West Indies became the best team in the world in the 1980s without an all rounder, as did Australia in the ’90s. They had specialists, some of whom were handy with the bat and the ball – part time. Australia won a hell of a lot more matches when Steve Waugh stopped being a bits-and-pieces all-rounder and became a specialist batsman who occasionally bowled.

We should get rid of this talk of ‘the all-rounder’ position as if it’s this essential thing – it’s confusing and lets players get away with poor performances for too long (Watson has never been dropped for form).

Instead we should have a ‘batsman who can bowl a few useful overs’ position – plus a ‘bowler who is handy with the bat’ position. That way we ensure some steel to the tail and variation in the attack, but everyone still knows what their job is – and if they fail at that job (i.e. their day job, not their added extra) they can be dropped.

So by all means lets keep on the Watson and M. Marsh, but they should be judged as batsmen and part-timers, not all rounders. Abolish that word, our selection policies will have a lot more accountability, and we might start winning more overseas.

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