Fast bowling All-Rounders

With the amount of cricket that is being played these days, we are observing a decrease in the number of genuine fast bowling all rounders. We are not talking about those batsmen who bowl part-time spin, those players are definitely all-rounders but I want to talk about genuine fast bowlers who are good batsmen.

West Indies boasted of some legendary all rounders back in the 70's and 80's. Then Pakistan had Imran Khan and during the same time India unearthed Kapil Dev. I hope that you all get the idea of what players we are focusing on.

A genuine fast bowling all rounder is some one who can bowl Fast-Medium bowling and can make good contribution with the bat and can bat anywhere in the batting order(obviously before tail-enders).
Some of the players who fall under this category who are currently playing are South Africa's Jacques Kallis, New Zealands Jacob Oram, West Indies Dwane Bravo etc.,

When Irfan Pathan made his debut and rattled the pakistani batting order, and played well with the bat, everyone in the media was convinced that we have found the successor of Kapil Dev, I do agree that Irfan Pathan is a good all rounder but he has a long way to go before he can be considered as an all-rounder.

Andrew Flintoff is another good example but at the moment he is trying to recover from his injuries. Similarly Shane Watson who was for a very long time termed as the Australian's answer to Flintoff, is slowly showing why he was regarded so highly.

Lets look at two young players, who have just started their career's are looking destined to stardom and in my opinion have all the talent to be successful fast bowling all rounders.

Stuart Broad : He is according to me the brightest prospect in this category. He is tall 6ft 5in. Has a nice bowling action and has an amazing batting technique. If England handle him well I am sure he will only get better. Now that we are discussing about him, I feel obliged to mention that he was the unlucky bowler who Yuvraj Singh hit for 6 consecutive sixes in one over in T20 World Cup. We should commend his hard work to come out strong after that humiliation. He worked hard to get back into the England Team, and in the just concluded match against New Zealand, he bowled long spells, and also batted beautifully for his 70 odd runs. His determination and talent enabled him to bat on a swing friendly wicket and I really want him to keep playing like this.

Tim Southee : He is a young(19 year old) New Zealand bowler . He showed he can bat when he score 70 odd runs(which included 9 sixes) in a test match against england. I believe that he has the talent to become a good all rounder, given the fact that New Zealand doesnt have the talented pool of players to chose from( like India and Australia do), he would have enough time and will hopefully get enough opportunities to improve his game and become an integral part of the New Zealand team. With Shane Bond gone New Zealand are trying hard to find a match winner who can create pressure on the opposition and get wickets, Tim Southee can as well do the job for them. But it is just early days for him and he will have to perform against tougher oppositions on flat wickets to be reckoned as a good player, hopefully he would do just that and win matches for New Zealand.

If you all think of other young players who are probably under 22-23 years of age, and have shown enough talent to achieve great heights both in fast bowling and batting, feel free to reply and add to this list of two players.