Test All-Time XI of Great All-rounders XI vs Great specialists XI? Who would win?

[Harsh Thakor]

Here I have made 2 teams.One consists of all specialist batsmen and bowlers and a specialist wicket keeper.THe other comprises all the great all-rounders of the game.I wished to evaluate the strength of the allrounders all-time xi versus that of one with either great bowlers and batsmen and great wicketkeeper.

Specialists xi

Barry Richards
Sunil Gavaskar
Don Bradman
Sachin Tendulkar
Brian Lara
Alan Border
Alan Knott
Shane Warne
Malcolm Marshall
Wasim Akram
Dennis Lillee

All-rounders xi

Vinoo Mankad
Jacques Kallis
Gary Sobers
Mushtaq Muhammad
Mike Procter
Keith Miller
Adam Gilchrist
Ian Botham
Imran Khan
Kapil Dev
Richard Hadlee



All-rounders xi has of course considerable more batting depth and many more frontline bowers.However specialists xi has more talent in every department.The main bowlers of all-rounders xi would be Hadlee,Imran,Kapil ,Botham and Mankad with occasional support from Sobers.Kallis,Mushtaq etc.Quite likely Sobers and Kallis would never bowl often.Placed Wasim Akram and Malcolm Marshall in specialist category as morally they wee great fast bowlers and not genuine all-rounders.

With a gun on my head I would back the specialists as it has more match-winnners as batsmen and bowlers.Still anybody's guess.A thrilling finish neverthless!

 

[Robert]

This is fun.

If you want to make the ARs even stronger, get Wally Hammond. The Specs would never get through that batting! Nine, ten, jack have sixteen test hundreds! Though it would improve Lillee who couldn’t be bothered to bowl at tailenders, he just wanted to overcome the top six.

 

[Navdeep Srivastava]

Specialist eleven will win most of time, apart from Gilly nobody from all rounder 11 can be said clear cut favorite.
Another thing is Mcgrath is sitting out, and he used to eat bits and pieces cricketers in test matches .
Another point is if Sobers or Kallis didn't score then who s going to score, may be Gilly.
People should understand the great West Indies Side or great Australian side don't have great allrounders but they dominated everybody, in test matches great specialist players are more valuable unless players are Imran, hadlee, Sobers and Kallis.
Another point is in this hypothetical matchup some body from all rounder 11 get injured then it will be a tough to replace him while specialist eleven have McGrath, Waqar, Steyn, Dravid etc sitting out.

 

[Justcrazy]

Getting through all rounders batting will be very tough ..... everyone very capable of batting.

 

[hk031992]

I would favour the specialists. Plus, the likes of Akram and Warne and maybe Marshall could be argued to be bowling all rounders.

The all rounders are overly reliant on Sobers and Kallis in batting. If they fail, then Gilchrist, Dev, Botham and Khan would have to do lots of scoring. That might adversely affect their bowling.