Top 5 all-rounders of modern-day Test cricket
Being an all-rounder is probably the toughest job in cricket as it requires a player to be adept at more than one skill. In cricket, the era after 1990 is widely considered the modern era. As compared to the 1980s, which is regarded as the golden era for all-rounders due to the presence of four legendary all-rounders (Imran Khan, Ian Botham, Richard Hadlee and Kapil Dev), the post-1990 era saw a decline in Test allrounders.
While this period saw the emergence of excellent ODI all-rounders and 'bits and pieces' players who masqueraded as all-rounders, only a handful of them managed to shine in Test cricket, proving that excelling as a Test allrounder is far tougher than doing so in ODIs.
Here are the top 5 Test all-rounders in the modern era.
#1 Jacques Kallis
If we go by the weight of statistics alone, Jacques Kallis will be ranked by many as no.1 in the list of the greatest all-rounders. Kallis had a watertight technique and his defensive game was suited more to Test cricket than to ODIs, where his low strike rate sometimes came in for bitter criticism.
Once Kallis got set, it was very difficult to dislodge him due to his almost impregnable defence. Such are the batting feats of Kallis that even if he did not take a single wicket, he would still go down in history as one of the all-time greats.
In the latter half of his career, his bowling workload reduced as he focused solely on batting but he was a wonderful pacer too, with 292 wickets to his name. When on song, he could swing matches with the ball as well. He remains the only player in history to score 10,000 runs and take 250 wickets in two forms of the game.
Note: In all the slides of the article, first 'Ave' in the table corresponds to 'Batting Average' and the second 'Ave' corresponds to 'Bowling Average.' SR refers to 'Bowling Strike Rate.'
