Good with bat, good with ball

Two allrounders have been in the news during the last week - Andrew Flintoff because of the injury that ruled him out of the West Indies tour, and Jacques Kallis for becoming the only cricketer to score 10,000 runs and take 200 wickets in both Tests and one-day internationals. Kallis' feat led to comparisons with Garry Sobers and there were several debates about who was the better allrounder. In this week's List, we look at allrounders with the largest differences between batting and bowling averages, both throughout and at the end of their careers.

Kallis currently averages 54.37 with the bat and 30.97 with the ball in Tests and the difference of 23.40 is the second largest in the table below. The largest difference - 23.74 - belongs to Sobers, who averages just below 58 with the bat, significantly more than Kallis, and just over 34 with the ball.

The largest difference between Kallis' batting and bowling averages, however, is 26.91 soon after the Centurion Test against New Zealand in 2007 - his 111th Test. His batting average had reached its peak at 58.20 after scores of 186 and 131 in the two-Test series and his bowling average at the time was 31.28.

Sobers had a maximum difference of nearly 30, soon after his 65th Test - against England in Georgetown in 1968. He was averaging 63.77 after scoring 152 and 95 in that game, while his bowling average was 33.91 after he picked up six wickets in that match.

Frank Worrell finished his 51-Test career with a difference of 10.76 between his batting and bowling averages, which were 49.48 and 38.72 respectively. However, after his second Test, the difference was 166 because Worrell was averaging 256 with the bat and 90 with the ball.

Sobers played only one ODI, made a duck and took 1 for 31, and so he doesn't appear in our ODI table. Kallis heads that list, with a difference of 13.57 between his batting average of 45.30 and bowling mean of 31.72.

Flintoff did not figure in our Test table because his Test batting average of 31.69 is marginally less than his bowling average of 32.07. Flintoff's batting mean in Tests has never crossed 34 and his bowling average has never fallen below 30.

However, Flintoff's ODI bowling average is much lower - 24.69 - than his batting average of 32.60, and the difference of nearly eight runs between the two puts him at No. 6 in the table below.

Michael Clarke had a freakish difference of 159 between his batting and bowling averages after his first four ODIs. He had taken only one wicket and was averaging 24 with the ball but three not-outs in his first four innings gave him a batting average of 208. Clarke presently has a difference of 7.06 between his batting and bowling averages.