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With the selection of Moises Henriques for the first Test against India as an all-rounder, I thought I would try to clarify my thinking on the issue of the jack-of-all-trades cricketer in Test matches.
The esteemed Sheek posted a comment buried somewhere in a thread on this site that I have always remembered. To paraphrase, he said the key selection when naming an all-time Australian XI is not where to put Bradman, but whether to name Keith Miller.
Miller as an all-rounder opened the bowling with Ray Lindwall and batted as high as number four.
His Testrecord stands at 55 matches averaging 37 with the bat (almost 3000 runs including seven centuries) and 23 with the ball (170 wickets including seven five-wicket hauls). It’s impressive and certainly puts the lie to calling players like Maxwell or Henriques all-rounders.
For the record, I don’t believe all-rounders are necessary or even that important in Test cricket – Miller would be my 12th Man in an all-time Australian Test XI.
Maybe I am affected by age: I grew up in the time of one-day cricket, and to me an all-rounder is a batsman who can bowl 10 overs effectively.
Whether they open like Shane Watson or bat in the middle order like Jacques Kallis or come in late in the order like Ian Botham I have always considered them to be a batsman who can bowl, not a fifth bowler who can bat a bit.
Those 10 overs are all that is needed. In an ODI it’s mandated by the rules, in a Test match those 10 overs are simply a break for your four front-line bowlers and often used near the lunch and tea interval or to try and manufacture a wicket as a partnership breaker.
Playing an all-rounder at number seven after the wicket-keeper is acceptable in limited overs matches, but not in tests. In a Test match you need six quality batsmen, the team needs to be able to build a score — it doesn’t matter if you can take 20 wickets if your batting line-up cannot bat out a day.
While a good all-rounder can give you an effective fifth bowler, the recent SCG Testin which Australia played five bowlers shows just how frustrating playing five specialist bowlers can be. In that Test only one Australian spell lasted more than four overs, a solitary five-over spell from Jackson Bird.
Six batsmen, a wicketkeeper, three quicks and a spinner will get the job done nine times out of ten. That other match will be on a green top or a dust bowl where conditions clearly favour either pace or spin.
Clearly John Inverarity and Mickey Arthur have a fixation with all-rounders — no doubt due to Arthur’s previous association with Kallis.
I hope Henriques does well and not least because he will keep Glenn Maxwell out of the Test side.
But I doubt that he (a) is ready for Test cricket, (b) has truly earned his baggy green cap, and (c) will become more than a bits-and pieces-cricketer internationally.
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