What we talk about when we talk about all-rounders

On this season's form Travis Head is probably the pick. I'm an Henriques fan but he hasn't got the runs, or wickets, on the board. Cartwright's a fair choice as a batsman but he doesn't cut it as an allrounder , bowling figures are too ordinary. I reckon Mitch Marsh has been tried enough. He's a decent bowler but hasn't performed well enough at six with the bat. Looking ahead at India you do need a fifth bowler. I'd say Head.

We generally think of an all-rounder having a good bowling average. Doug Walters' bowling average was under 30 -- but he only took 49 wickets in 70 odd Tests. A frontline bowler takes 4+ wickets per Test on average. I think an all-rounder ( like Kallis did) should be averaging around at least 3 per Test. Any more is a bonus. Batting -- Alan Davidson was considered an all-rounder, but never scored a century and averaged in the 20s. I think these days, 35+ ( along with the bowling) is expected.

186 wickets at 24.54 at first class level is excellent.

Faulkner's 1st class bowling average is better than Bird, Starc, Hazlewood, Pattinson, Cummins, Johnson, Lyon, Harris, Siddle, O'Keefe and Mennie. Not saying that he is a better bowler than them of course but his bowling record is amazing.

Mitch Marsh - 1st class batting average - 29.05. This season in first class has scored 12, 0, 14 and 0 Faulkner - 1st class batting average - 32.67. This season in first class has scored 31, 78, 13, 6, 100* Unfortunately, Faulkner will end up playing lots of One Day cricket instead of being able to try and focus on his 1st class batting record.

I would say a true all rounder is anyone that can take 5 wickets or score 100 runs on any given day and their bowling average is less than the batting average. ( Kallis, Sobers) You do have batsmen that can average 40 plus and bowl 20 plus overs in a TEST match picking up a couple of wickets (M,Clarke, Katich). You have bowlers that can score 100's and average under 30 with the ball ( Johnson) all are worth having in your team.

Stoinis would have greater selection claims if his bowling was worth looking at. Cartwright is seen as a risk because his bowling isn't strong, but Stoinis has even worse bowling credentials. Faulkner has obviously walked under a ladder while crossing a black cat, causing him to drop and break a mirror, at least as far as the test format is concerned. Faulkner's bowling average is better than any contenders, by some distance but he couldn't bat at six and given Wade's batting over the last two years, nor can he. Barely can make a run at seven, in fact. Peter Nevill has every right to be sticking pins in Hohns, Waugh, Lehmann and Chappell voodoo dolls.

Yep agreed.

Neither is/was Mitch Marsh. Given how Shane Watson was flogged by media and many others, for his all too regular failures, his batting average of 35 is the stuff of dreams in recent years, as far as "batting all-rounders" are concerned. We would love an "all-rounder' with mid 30's averages with both bat and ball now, but the pickings look very slim. We will need to compromise and the Mitch Marsh project revealed that if batting at six, the compromise cant be choosing a few wickets over regular runs. At least, in Cartwright, we have a player whose first class batting record justifies him getting a chance. Just don't expect many wickets from him.

Possibly, depends how he goes. Unless they want more than 2 spin options, there really are two possibilities. Select someone like Maxwell as the batting allrounder and the second spinner, or select 2 genuine spin bowlers and someone like Cartwright as the batting allrounder. The advantage of the latter option is that then your allrounder is still the bit-part bowler. If you are only selecting 2 spinners and one is the batting allrounder, then you are likely going to be expecting them to bowl a lot. Alternately, you could potentially go for 3 spin options and pick Maxwell along with two main spinners.

Stoinis is probably the ideal player for us as he bats well and can relieve for 10-12 overs in a day. In saying that, it seems pretty unlikely he gets called up to the Test team anytime soon. Personally (if we're definitively going down the all-rounder path) I'd go for Faulkner in India. His bowling, and particularly his slower ball variations, could be more than useful on deteriorating day 3-5 pitches in India and he has had some success batting in India (albeit in ODI cricket).

Proper, genuine all rounders are rare as hens' teeth. As you've noted, a genuine all rounder is one who is good enough with both bat and ball to be considered for selection based on either discipline. I've often used a test of averaging over 35 with the willow and under 35 with the leather for this purpose. Based on the above criteria, in the history of Test cricket, five players have accomplished this over their careers with a requirement for 1000 runs/100 wickets ... Sir Garfield Sobers, Jacques Kallis, Tony Grieg, Imran Khan and Keith Miller. Two current players are there ... Shakib Al Hasan and Ravi Ashwin (Ravi currently at 34.92 with the bat). Some might debate the two current players based on home vs. away performances. Others have come close, but even then I reckon you'd be flat out gaining agreement on another 10 names. I find this acid test, along with the difficulty of naming genuine all rounders even in the absence of straight stats, demonstrates how rare the true all rounder is. The players most will throw up beyond the list above ... Dev, Hadlee, Botham, Pollock, Akram ... are all generational players that were not only outstanding cricketers, but carried their teams above what they might have otherwise been capable of, perhaps despite some quibbles on statistical return. By all means, if you have one of these in your ranks they should absolutely be nurtured as they can transform a team. But, they are rare, with perhaps one existing at Test level around the world at any point in time. Even then, from a statistical perspective they are mixed in with the likes of Ravi Shastri, Chris Cairns, Irfan Pathan, Mitchell Johnson and Chaminda Vaas ... all fine players, but not exactly the type of players you would consider able to hold their position based on either discipline. The rarity of all rounders also shows how foolish it is to attempt to "manufacture" one. This usually ends up playing someone out of position ... usually batting someone at 6 who is incapable of scoring runs regularly, or one at 8 who can't take the wickets necessary. By definition, this then leaves the team effectively one short as the defects of the weaker side are so great that the stronger side can't make up for them. So to find the answer, we must start with the question. I would have thought the question is how does 10 - 15 overs a day get absorbed by a fifth bowling option who will keep it tight and pick up the odd wicket, in order to limit the seamers to about 15-18 overs per new ball? In my mind, the answer is the quintessential "part-timer" who is actually used ... Andrew Symonds immediately springs to mind along with others down the years. So it comes back to the time honoured view of 6 batsmen, 1 keeper and 4 bowlers ... with the twist that one (or more) of your batsmen can roll out a handful of tidy overs each day to give the quicks a bit of a rest and not leak runs while they're at it.

thought with the tour of india coming up soon, that head would be the next player in. i doubt cartwright will even play in India, they will use a spinner, and a spin option all rounder. rather just choose the batsman that bowls a bit, than the non-existent all rounder.

Your genuine allrounders, someone like Kallis who averaged over 50 with the bat and under 30 with the ball, (could bowl 145+ in his younger years too!) is a pretty rare commodity. Considering how hard it is to be a top level test batsman at all, doing that while also being a top level test bowler makes it the sort of thing you might see once in a generation. In general we are looking at batting-allrounders and bowling allrounders. Batting allrounders are people who bat in the top 6 and do well enough with the bat to hold their place there as a batsman, while offering a decent change option with the ball, while bowling allrounders are players who take one of the four main bowling spots while scoring some decent runs and meaning that your team can still make big scores from 6-down. Faulkner is the latter, which means that to be selected he has to displace one of the four main bowlers, and it's hard to see that happening at the moment. He possibly has the potential to bowl well enough to snag that third seamer spot, certainly replacing Bird with Faulkner significantly strengthens the batting, but you can only do that if you aren't going to be weakening the bowling to do it, and you then still need the batting allrounder to make up the 5th bowling option. As it stands, by the time Faulkner is able to stake his case for the third seamer spot Cummins may well be fully back playing long-form cricket and jump straight past everyone in that position.

India had 2 guys get numbers close to that just in the series against England just completed

A true all-rounder is that rarest of cricket creatures: the player who is good enough with the bat to be worth his place in the team for that skill alone, and accomplished enough with the ball to demand inclusion solely for his bowling. Most "all-rounders" tend to err on one side or the other. Richard Hadlee had some claim to all-rounder status, but while he led the New Zealand bowling attack for years, it's unlikely he would have played for his country purely as a batsman. So Hadlee was at best a "bowling all-rounder". Hilton Cartwright, new kid on the Australian block for the Boxing Day Test, has first-class figures that suggest he is very much a "batting all-rounder", a top-six batsman who bowls regularly for his state but is not expected to run through the opposition top order. One of the great all-rounder efforts in recent times was that of Andrew Flintoff in the 2005 Ashes Batting at six, he scored 402 runs at 40.2 and took 24 wickets at 27.29. Effectively, England in that series had 12 players to Australia's 11. Flintoff had never quite reached that level before 2005 and he never did so afterwards, not least because of the physical strain. Every team wants a true all-rounder, but invariably teams have to compromise. Hilton Cartwright, come on down . . .

"Faulkner is arguably the best all-rounder in Australia but seems to have been ‘friend-zoned’ into the short format categories despite his talent." Made my day.

What we mean when we talk about an all-rounder, is a top 6 batsman who can deliver 10-20 overs an innings without getting smashed around the park. They aren't there as a wicket taker, they are there to rest the front line bowlers. Additionally, we're really not talking about a spin bowler, in Australian conditions anyway. Despite the vitriol directed against him, Watson is one of the best we've had in the position, and would have been better if he hadn't been shunted around the order and removed from his best position. At the moment, Cartwright probably does the best job of fitting in the top 6 and delivering a few overs. Everyone else that's being talked about, is a good number 8 batsman, but no better than that. For India, Travis Head might get a look in, but to be honest, we're thin on the ground

Faulkner isn't a top-six batsman. End of story. He could be included as a bowler, theoretically, and would obviously boost the batting depth from No.8. But unfortunately for him fast bowlers is the one area where Australia already has a fair bit of depth and he's not high in the queue. He's a great fit for the limited overs sides, but isn't the kind of player the Australian Test team needs - especially when our main concern in strengthening our batting, not our bowling.

Faulkner is the last bloke you want to take to India. His career stats against them are twice as bad as everyone else he's played against. Kohli wasn't exaggerating when he said he was tired of smashing Faulkner all round the park.