JACK MILNER

 ROCKING THE BOAT

by Jack Milner

 It might be a hackneyed expression but it remains true: cricket is a funny old game. I have often argued that it is more a culture than a sport. You have to have been brought up with the concept that a Test match can go on for five days and not have a winner. That is why the Americans will never come to terms with Test cricket!

Even records in cricket are different to other sports. You can have, for example, a record sixth wicket partnership by two Gauteng players against the Dolphins at the Wanderers in a Test, which is different to another sixth wicket stand between two players from the same team against the same team in a limited overs match.

 You could again have another record by the same two players against the same team, but this time at Kingsmead in Durban.

 The reason for all this is that former South African cricket captain and managing director of the United Cricket Board, Dr Ali Bacher, got together with journalist David Williams to write a book on South African cricket called “Jacques Kallis and 12 other Great South African All-rounders”.  

 Very much like all the cricket records, every cricket enthusiast will have an opinion on who they think are the 13 best all-rounders in South Africa but Bacher and Williams have clearly laid out their criteria for the “baker’s dozen” they have selected.   

 They started by looking at batting and bowling averages and decided to include any all-rounder who had a Test batting average of at least 40 and a Test bowling average of less than 30. They then discovered it would have been a list of one. The only person in the history of the game to meet those criteria was South African Aubrey Faulkner who played between 1906 and 1924.

 The reality is that most all-rounders are stronger in one aspect of the game than another. 

 Finally, the authors decided to consider Test cricketers with a batting average higher than 25, a bowling average lower than 35, they must have played at least 20 Tests, scored a minimum of 1 000 runs and taken at least 50 wickets or a minimum of one wicket per Test. 

 In order to create a table of the best all-rounders, they also decided to deduct the batting average from the bowling average, the logic being that the larger the difference, the better the player was at both bowling and batting.

Despite lowering the original standard, just 42 players in the history of the sport meet those requirements. Remarkably two players stand out well above the rest. At No 1 is West Indian legend Sir Garfield Sobers and at No 2, only marginally behind him, is Kallis.

Sobers had an average of 57,78 for batting and 34,03 for bowling, a difference of 23,75. Kallis, who could still go up or down, is 56,10 and 32,43, a difference of 23,67. 

In third place is Englishman Stanley Jackson (15,50) who played for England from 1893 to 1905. Joining Kallis on that list are five other South Africans with Faulkner at No 7, Eddie Barlow at No 10, Shaun Pollock (12th), Trevor Goddard (13th) and Brian McMillan (16th). Tony Greig, who left South Africa to play in England, is at No 14.

 Bacher and Williams have included Greig in their calculations as well as a number of other South Africans who did not get an opportunity to showcase their talents. Basil D’Oliveira had to leave South Africa before he could play and he was already getting on a bit by the time he was picked to play for England.

Two players who could have been right up with the best, if it had not been for South Africa’s expulsion from world cricket, are Mike Proctor and Clive Rice. Proctor played just seven Tests and Rice none, but their first class averages were good enough to have them included in South Africa’s top 13.

Talking to Rice at the book launch at St John’s College in Johannesburg on Tuesday night, the cricket great admitted to being a little bitter. “In a different way, I was also a victim of apartheid. That 1970s team was so strong that we had to work our butts off to get in. Players like myself, Vince van der Bijl, Jimmy Cook and Henry Fotheringham, all lost out on what could have been brilliant international careers.” 

The three remaining players included among the 13 best, were done so for their explosive ability and personalities – Lance Klusener, Tiger Lance and Jimmy Sinclair.

The book then devotes a chapter to each of the 13, with anecdotes about each one. There are some wonderful quotes from the late Tiger Lance who had a biting sense of humour and at times an awkward sense of right and wrong.