Who’s the best all rounder in World Cup Cricket history?

We love cricket all rounders (players who can both bat and bowl). These players are great assets for their teams and captains love ’em. So, who are the best all rounders in World Cup Cricket history?

Kapil, Steve Waugh and Jayasuriya have all performed really well but Imran Khan takes the lead based with high wickets/game. He has one of the highest wickets/game (1.8 wickets/game) and a great batting average (28 runs/game) – only 3 runs short of Jayasuriya and Steve Waugh’s runs/game.

Imran was a great competitor and a fearless leader.

Bubble size indicates the all rounder index –> (Total runs scored in World Cup games/Max. total runs scored by all rounders in World Cup games) + (Total wickets  in World Cup games/Max. total wickets by all rounders in World Cup games). The all rounder index is a simple calculation and has some limitations:

• It favors players who’ve played more games
• It doesn’t take into account bowling economy and batting scoring rate

Here’s the R code for the plot.

The data for this analysis is in following form.

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Update (Sep 16, 2010) >> Bernard recently commented  that Lance Klusener seems like the best all rounder from the above plot. Lance was of course a great player and we all loved watching him bowl fast deliveries and also hit bowlers all around the park as an aggressive batsman.

Table 1 has the all rounder data based on which I picked Imran Khan as the best. Here’s a quick comparison between Klusener and Imran.

1) Lance Klusener was really a bowler who could bat, whereas Imran was a thorough all rounder. Table 2 clearly demonstrates it.
– Although Imran played ~ twice the number of matches compared to Klusener, Imran faced 3.6 times more balls than Lance while batting
– Klusener’s contribution to his team’s victory was more from his bowling than his batting i.e. his side depended on him more for his bowling than his batting (see the contrast in Imran’s and Klusener’s “% wins when scored 50+” column in Table 2. Imran’s high scores resulted in his side’s victory 80% of times, whereas Klusener’s high scores resulted in his team’s victory only 33% of times)

2) Imran Khan took 1.5 times more wickets than Lance and scored 2 times as many runs (back in the days with no fielding restrictions), and captained his side to World Cup championship.

In my mind, Imran is the best all rounder although I would have loved my childhood hero, Kapil Dev, to be #1 but the data suggests otherwise.

Table 1: World Cup Cricket all rounder data

	Country	Player	Runs/Game	Wickets/Game	Total Runs Scored	Total.Wickets
1	Australia	TM Moody	21.93	0.93	329	14
2	Australia	SR Waugh	31.79	1.04	922	27
3	India	N Kapil Dev	29.09	1.12	669	28
4	India	M Amarnath	21.17	1.33	254	16
5	India	Yuvraj Singh	28.92	1	376	5
6	New Zealand	CZ Harris	21.55	1.19	431	31
7	New Zealand	SB Styris	47.94	0.81	767	13
8	Pakistan	Imran Khan	27.75	1.79	666	34
9	Pakistan	Abdul Razzaq	20.69	1.08	269	14
10	South Africa	L Klusener	37.78	2	340	22
11	Sri Lanka	ST Jayasuriya	31.92	0.83	1149	25
12	Zimbabwe	KM Curran	26.09	0.9	287	9

Table 2: Comparison between Lance Klusener and Imran Khan’s performance in World Cup Cricket

Batting

Player	ODI played	Total Runs Scored	Total Balls Faced	Centuries	Fifties	Runs/ Game	% wins when scored 50+
Imran Khan	28	666	1014	1	4	27.75	80
L Klusener	12	340	283	0	3	37.78	33

Bowling

Player	ODI played	Total Wickets	Total Overs Bowled	% wins when took 3+ wickets	Economy	Wickets/ Game	Maidens/ Game
Imran Khan	28	34	168.9	60	3.88	1.79	0.95
L Klusener	12	22	87.5	100	4.64	2	0.55