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This is an archive article published on January 20, 2007

Managing the all-purpose players

Mohinder Amarnath and Aravinda de Silva are two all-rounders who played a big role in their country winning the World Cup.

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All-rounder needs to be handled with care: Amarnath

Yes, all-rounders were one of the reasons why we won the 1983 World Cup in England.

All-rounders are the strength of a good side. Teams like Australia, South Africa and Pakistan have players like Andrew Symonds, Shaun Pollock and Shoaib Malik. Unfortunately we don’t have a genuine all-rounder like Kapil. So we have to be careful when picking the side. Dhoni is like Gilchrist and can bat a bit. A player like Sachin Tendulkar can also be used as an all-rounder when the occasion demands.

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Irfan has the potential to be a good all-rounder, but then he has to do both well: bowl as well as bat and not only one of them. You have to nurture players with the potential to do well with both the bat and ball by giving them opportunities to display their talents regularly. Take Pathan’s case for instance, he was shaping up well, but as soon as he loses form with the ball, he gets dropped. This is bound to dent his confidence. A bowler-batsman has his on and off days. They need to be persisted with over a period of time to develop into good all-rounders. Genuine all-rounders are a rare commodity. They come around only once in a while. What you see today in the likes of Symonds and Malik, who are good utility players.

(As told to Peter Pears)

They should be given time to settle down: Aravinda

It is very important to have all-rounders in an ODI team. It gives an option of choosing right balance. In today’s competitive cricket, all-rounders play very important role. They strengthen the side in both the departments. When we were here for the 1996 World Cup, we had batsmen like Sanath Jayasuriya, Ranatunga, Dharmasena and myself, who could both bowl and bat. The best part was that the conditions in India helped us as most of the bowlers could bowl spin. However, if you are playing on wickets like in Australia, teams need all-rounders who are medium-pacers. It is very important that an all-rounder should be given time to settle down, may be one or two years. You can’t genarate all-rounders in short spans of time. For example, in Sri Lanka, people thought that Farveez Mahroof can’t be a good all-rounder as he didn’t have the potential with the bat. But one can see the difference now, he is one of the more important members of the team and has won many matches with the bat too.

(As told to Devendra Pandey)

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