After my recent post about the World’s Best All-Rounders a reader asked me why I hadn’t included Shakib Al Hasan of Bangladesh in my list. The reason was simple: he had not qualified. At the time he lacked 2 wickets for the 50 wicket qualification, and his batting average was 29.79, meaning he just missed out on the batting average qualification too.
Since then he has played 2 more tests against India and is competing in a third against New Zealand. His bowling continues to impress and he has another 10 wickets to his name since I last wrote, meaning he now easily qualifies for his bowling both on aggregate and average. Not bad for a 22-year-old.
His batting, however, wasn’t doing him any favours as an all-rounder with scores of 17, 17, 34 and 7 in the games against India. All this changed yesterday when he enjoyed a whirlwind partnership of 145 with Mahmudullah and was unlucky to be dismissed for 87, bringing his test average up to 30.24. As I write, then, he is one of the World’s Best All-Rounders.
He is joined as a debutant in the table by Graeme Swann, who has also qualified since my last post:
| Player | Matches | Runs | Bat Av | Wkts | Bowl Av | Ct | X-factor |
| GS Sobers (WI) | 93 | 8032 | 57.78 | 235 | 34.03 | 109 | 3370 |
| JH Kallis (ICC/SA) | 137 | 10843 | 54.76 | 261 | 31.55 | 155 | 3192 |
| AW Greig (Eng) | 58 | 3599 | 40.43 | 141 | 32.20 | 87 | 1985 |
| TL Goddard (SA) | 41 | 2516 | 34.46 | 123 | 26.22 | 48 | 1550 |
| BM McMillan (SA) | 38 | 1968 | 39.36 | 75 | 33.82 | 49 | 1359 |
| KR Miller (Aus) | 55 | 2958 | 36.97 | 170 | 22.97 | 38 | 1313 |
| IT Botham (Eng) | 102 | 5200 | 33.54 | 383 | 28.40 | 120 | 1193 |
| Mushtaq Mohammad (Pak) | 57 | 3643 | 39.17 | 79 | 29.22 | 42 | 1102 |
| Asif Iqbal (Pak) | 58 | 3575 | 38.85 | 53 | 28.33 | 36 | 963 |
| SM Pollock (SA) | 108 | 3781 | 32.31 | 421 | 23.11 | 72 | 947 |
| ER Dexter (Eng) | 62 | 4502 | 47.89 | 66 | 34.93 | 29 | 840 |
| ST Jayasuriya (SL) | 110 | 6973 | 40.07 | 98 | 34.34 | 78 | 761 |
| Imran Khan (Pak) | 88 | 3807 | 37.69 | 362 | 22.81 | 28 | 633 |
| GE Gomez (WI) | 29 | 1243 | 30.31 | 58 | 27.41 | 18 | 490 |
| Graeme Swann (Eng) | 16 | 525 | 32.81 | 69 | 30.69 | 10 | 445 |
| JDP Oram (NZ) | 33 | 1780 | 36.32 | 60 | 33.05 | 15 | 376 |
| JR Reid (NZ) | 58 | 3428 | 33.28 | 85 | 33.35 | 43 | 374 |
| N Kapil Dev (India) | 131 | 5248 | 31.05 | 434 | 29.64 | 64 | 313 |
| MH Mankad (India) | 44 | 2109 | 31.47 | 162 | 32.32 | 33 | 311 |
| A Flintoff (Eng/ICC) | 79 | 3845 | 31.77 | 226 | 32.78 | 52 | 263 |
| Shakib Al Hasan (Ban) | 17 | 877 | 30.24 | 58 | 29.96 | 8 | 248 |
| CL Cairns (NZ) | 62 | 3320 | 33.53 | 218 | 29.40 | 14 | 206 |
| IK Pathan (India) | 29 | 1105 | 31.57 | 100 | 32.26 | 8 | 119 |
| DL Vettori (ICC/NZ) | 98 | 3789 | 30.55 | 316 | 33.56 | 55 | 112 |
(I’ve omitted the pre-war players this time)
Dan Vettori has slipped down a place. There are now four current players in the table. I don’t know of anybody else who’s near to qualifying except perhaps Stuart Broad. Any suggestions?