The Cricketer Magazine – June 2018

17 for 5 in the World Cup of 1983, Kapil Dev scored 175.

India beat Zimbabwe in a game they were certain to lose,

and then – impossibly – they won the tournament and

changed cricket forever.

Botham’s larks in 1981 remain the classic example of

the madness of the great allrounder: skewering the type

for all time. You need reminding? Humbled, defeated

and devastated, Botham scored 149 after England had

followed on and England won. Next match, with Australia

cruising to victory, Botham took fi ve wickets for one run;

England won. The match after that, he secured the series

with a shatteringly brilliant 118.

Miracles are the great allrounder’s stock-in-trade. It’s

not just that they can score runs and take wickets and so

give a team double-value. The greater truth is that they

can transform a match or a series at any time. They don’t

have to wait their turn or the team’s turn. They genuinely

believe they can do whatever is necessary – and every so

often, they actually do it.

Bowling and batting are not linked skills. One is a

closed skill you can practise alone; the other is an open

skill that needs a partner. One is question, the other is

answer. One moves while the other is still. With one, error

is routine, with the other, error is fi nal. Physically and

morally, batting and bowling are unrelated pastimes: few

people want and fewer attempt to master both. Like the

male and the female roles in sex.

There are degrees of all-roundedness in other sports.

Swimmers can master more than one stroke, track-

and-field athletes can take part in the heptathlon or

the decathlon – though such athletes are almost always

below the level of the specialist in each individual event.

Triathlon requires a mastery of three disciplines, so does

the equestrian sport of eventing. Modern penthalon is

about fi ve unrelated disciplines.

The cricket allrounder seeks to master diametrically

opposed skills. This is a mental, or even a spiritual,

versatility that few others in sport are required to make.

Those who acquire this double competence are unusual

human beings: those who achieve double-excellence are

genuinely remarkable.

Specialist cricketers are trapped in the self-regard

of their own disciplines. Batsmen know that a bad fi rst

innings can make them irrelevant. Bowlers know an

off-day can lose a match. But the allrounder lets such

worrying thoughts fl oat by unregarded. Get a duck and

damn it, just wait until I have a bowl. If the bowling isn’t

great, never mind: you’ll be batting again soon enough

and you’ll not only redeem yourself, you’ll turn the entire

bloody match around.

This is a supreme form of sporting luxury – but only

the greats can afford it. If you don’t make a success of

Hamlet, bring the house down the next day as Bottom.

If they don’t like your painting, read your epic poem. If

they don’t like your novel, conduct your latest symphony.

You’re the great allrounder – you can do anything. Hell,

you can do everything.

No one could remember seeing

Sobers keep wicket, though all

agreed that had he ever done so, he

would have been the fi nest keeper

that ever pulled on a pair of gauntlets

JACQUES

KALLIS

13289 runs

@ 55.37

292 wkts

@ 32.65

KAPIL DEV

5248 runs @ 31.05

434 wkts @ 29.64

IMRAN KHAN

3807 runs @ 37.69

362 wkts @ 22.81

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