Ellyse Perry beats three great male all-rounders with her ODI batting and bowling averages

Ellyse Perry set the internet on fire last Saturday with her double hundred in the ongoing Women’s Ashes. She ended up with a score of 213 not out which is the highest Test score ever by an Australian women’s player and third highest Test score overall in the history of Women’s cricket.

This innings would seem even more remarkable if it’s taken into account that before playing that knock, she had bowled 21 overs in England’s first innings and had removed three of the English batswomen as well.

It’s not the first time that Perry has been the top performer for Australia both with the bat and ball in the same match. She has been doing that for quite a while now and a few would be surprised to know that her numbers in ODI Women’s cricket are actually better than the ODI numbers of some of the renowned men all-rounders.

It’s definitely debatable if the men and the women cricketers are compared at all as the pace of the women’s game is so different from the pace of the men’s game. But then another aspect that can be put into it is the difference of the physical strength of the players of two categories. The men are muscular and possess more physical strength. So it’s only obvious that their game would go at a different pace, but just because of that, the quality of the women cricketers can’t be undermined.

So here we compare Ellyse Perry with three top quality men all-rounders from different countries-

Elysse Perry and Kapil Dev

While there is no denying the fact that Kapil Dev is a legend of Indian cricket and is one of the best captains India have ever produced, he just remains short of getting into the category of a genuine all-rounder. A genuine all-rounder for me is someone who warrants a place in the XI either as a batsman or a bowler alone. Although Kapil was a top class bowler and was always the first pick in India’s pace department, he probably couldn’t be played in the XI for his batting abilities alone. Perry, on the other hand, can walk into the Australian XI either as a specialist bowler or a specialist batsman.

Here are Perry’s and Kapil’s ODI stats:

Ellyse Perry and Imran Khan

Imran is to Pakistan cricket what Kapil is to Indian cricket. The country’s best all-rounder of all time, the country’s first World Cup-winning captain and someone who changed the face of their cricket.

Imran is a little closer to Perry than Kapil as far as being a genuine all-rounder is concerned because he was not quite a lower order batsman as Kapil was. He used to bat mostly in the middle order and would sometimes even promote himself to no. 3 as he did in the semi-final of the World Cup 1992 and played a key role in Pakistan’s chase. He was easily one of the best batsmen in that Pakistani side apart from being one of their best bowlers, if not the best, as well.

However, Perry even pips Imran when it comes to the bowling and batting averages in ODI Cricket although there is a drastic difference in the no. of matches that the two players have played.

Perry and Imran’s ODI stats:

Ellyse Perry and Ben Stokes

While Kapil and Imran were the two best all-rounders of the game a few decades ago, the title of the best all-rounder in the modern day game goes to England’s Ben Stokes.

Stokes is someone who is also very close to being a genuine all-rounder or probably can be termed a genuine all-rounder but unlike Perry, he is again not the first pick of his team in both the disciplines. Batting wise, he is probably the second best England currently have after Joe Root, but in terms of bowling, he is only the second or the third change bowler for England in ODI cricket.

And he just like the above two legends also fails to match up the ODI batting and bowling averages of Perry.

Perry and Stokes’ ODI stats:

While on the basis of these figures, Perry can’t be declared a better all-rounder than Kapil, Imran or Stokes, one thing is for sure that she is well on her way of reserving a separate little chapter for herself in the cricket history.

(Stats updated as on November 14)