Greatest all-rounders of all time in Tests

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An all-rounder is someone who can be included in the team solely based on their batting or bowling performance. Over the years, there have been a lot of genuine all-rounders who have had the ability to score a bundle of runs in tough conditions alongside bowling hour after hour picking up crucial wickets. An asset to be valued, a true all-rounder effectively doubles as two players for the team.

Often, times there arises a confusion when a bowler performs well with the bat or when a specialist batsman acts as a 'first change bowler'. Examples of these two would be West Indies pace bowler Malcolm Marshall and Australian Allan Border respectively for feats they have achieved individually.

An awful lot of all-rounders are better at bowling than batting or vice versa. Only a fraction are equally good at both and hardly any outstanding which is why terms like "bowling all-rounder" and "batting all-rounder" have come into use.

19 players on a total of 26 occasions have taken five wickets in an innings and scored a century in the same Test match. Ian Botham achieved this feat five times, while Jacques Kallis, Garfield Sobers, Mushtaq Mohammed, Shakib Al Hasan and Ravichandran Ashwin have all done it twice.

I have attempted a similar list for ODIs, the link to which can be found here. Let us now look at some of the greatest all-rounders in the longest format of the game.

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