Can bat, can bowl

In our previous column, we published lists of the best top-order allrounders in Test cricket. In the week since, Shahid Afridi produced a compelling performance in the fourth ODI against Sri Lanka in Sharjah, scoring 75 and taking 5 for 35. He did not bat in the top five in that game - he doesn't regularly anymore - but for a significant part of his career Afridi used to be a top-order ODI allrounder. It's what we've looked at this week: allrounders who batted in the top five and bowled a sizeable number of overs as well in one-day internationals.

The first table contains in chronological order all players who batted in the top five for more than half their ODI careers and bowled at least 30 balls a match. The first allrounder on the list is Greg Chappell, who played the first-ever ODI, between Australia and England at the MCG in January 1971. Though he did not bowl and batted only at No. 6 in that match, Chappell went on to bat in the top five in 65 out of 72 innings and bowled five or more overs in 56 out of 72 innings. He finished with a batting average of 40.18 and a bowling average of 29.12, having scored 2331 runs and taken 72 wickets.

Viv Richards batted in the top five in all but six of his 167 ODI innings, and was called upon to bowl his offbreaks with regularity. He was the only allrounder to score a century and take five wickets in a one-day international - 119 at No. 5 and 5 for 41 against New Zealand - until Paul Collingwood did it against Bangladesh in 2005. Richards finished with 6721 runs at an average of 47, and 118 wickets at less than 36 apiece.

The three heavyweight top-order allrounders in the table above are Sanath Jayasuriya, Jacques Kallis and Afridi. All of them have played more than 300 ODIs, scored more than 6000 runs (Jayasuriya and Kallis have more than 10,000) and taken more than 250 wickets (Jayasuriya and Afridi have more than 300). The only other player in the table to pass either of those landmarks is Chris Gayle. He has 8087 runs but only 156 wickets, and whether he will add to either tally is uncertain.

Our second table is a list of allrounders with the best averages while batting in the top five in ODIs in which they bowled at least 45 balls. Shane Watson averages 55.65 with three hundreds and six fifties in the 28 ODIs in which he has bowled at least 45 balls. He has taken 42 wickets at 30 apiece in those games.

Pakistan have such a wealth of all-round riches at present in Afridi, Mohammad Hafeez and Abdul Razzaq, that Shoaib Malik played only one out of the first four ODIs against Sri Lanka in the UAE. Malik averages nearly 47 in the 33 one-dayers in which he has bowled at least 45 balls. He has taken 52 wickets in those games at less than 26 apiece.

The third table contains allrounders with the best bowling averages when batting in the top five in the same ODI. Watson's in distinguished company here too, in third place, below Wasim Akram and Andrew Flintoff and above Ian Botham. Watson averages 25.88 for his 92 wickets in the 85 matches where he has batted in Australia's top five, scoring 3577 runs at an average of 47.

Netherlands allrounder Ryan ten Doeschate owns the best batting average in one-dayers - 67. In the 31 matches in which he has batted higher than No. 6, ten Doeschate's batting mean rises to 67.40, and he has taken 48 wickets at 26.39 apiece in those games as well.

Who had to do the most bowling in ODIs in which he batted in the top five? This is one list in which Watson doesn't rank in the top 20. Bangladesh's Shakib Al Hasan bowls an average of 51.4 balls in matches in which he bats in the top five. Fast bowlers Botham and Manoj Prabhakar, who used to open the bowling and batting for India, are second and third, having bowled a little more than 50 balls on average.