The Cricket Statistician No 195

10 TABLE B: ALL-ROUNDERS WHO HAVE SCORED MORE THAN 15,000 RUNS AVERAGING OVER 30 AND HAVE TAKEN OVER 500 WICKETS AVERAGING LESS THAN 25 IN FIRST-CLASS CRICKET Player Runs Ave Wkts Ave Diff VS Hazare 18740 58.38 595 24.61 33.77 WW Armstrong 16158 46.83 832 19.71 27.12 WG Grace 54211 39.45 2809 18.14 21.31 FE Woolley 58959 40.77 2066 19.87 20.90 FA Tarrant 17952 36.41 1512 17.49 18.92 CEB Rice 26331 40.95 930 22.49 18.46 Mushtaq Mohammad 31091 42.07 936 24.34 17.73 JW Hearne 37252 40.98 1839 24.42 16.56 MJ Procter 21926 36 .00 1417 19.53 16.47 GH Hirst 36356 34.13 2742 18.73 15.40 EJ Barlow 18212 39.16 571 24.14 15.02 Imran Khan 17771 36.79 1287 22.32 14.47 W Rhodes 39969 30.81 4204 16.72 14.09 FS Jackson 15901 33.83 774 20.37 13.46 J Langridge 31716 35.20 1530 22.56 12.64 J Iremonger 16622 35.06 619 22.98 12.08 JR Mason 17337 33.27 848 22.39 10.88 DI Stevens 16133 34.99 572 24.44 10.55 TE Bailey 28641 33.42 2082 23.13 10.29 GL Jessop 26698 32.63 873 22.79 9.84 WE Alley 19612 31.88 768 22.68 9.20 JR Gunn 24557 33.18 1242 24.52 8.66 DS Steele 22346 32.47 623 24.89 7.58 AJ Watkins 20361 30.57 833 24.48 6.09 Of the 24, 19 (including Stevens) have achieved a positive differential of more than ten between their batting and bowling averages, but only 13 average more than 35 with the bat. Thirteen, and not fourteen, because as at 30 June 2021 Stevens’ batting average, infuriatingly, stood at 34.99! Only five – Tarrant, Rice, Alley, James Iremonger and Stevens – never played Test cricket. Tarrant and Alley were Australians who abandoned their chance to play for their native country in order to play professional cricket in England. For most of Rice’s career, South Africa was ostracised from international cricket. At the age of 42 he captained South Africa in the first three ODIs it played on its return to the fold after 21 years of international isolation but was then, controversially and to his dismay, left out of the squad for the ensuing one-off Test against West Indies. No current English all-rounder rivals Stevens’ differential of 10.55. It is a sign of how outstanding his all-round career figures are that only two Englishmen who made their first- class debuts after Stevens’ debut in 1995 have scored 5,000 runs and taken 250 wickets in first-class cricket with a batting average more than five runs higher than their bowling average. Both of them are current England all-rounders: Chris Woakes, whose differential is