Tony Greig: The oft overlooked cricketing career of the iconic voice of cricket

All-rounder par excellence

Greig was a useful medium pacer and off spinner

Greig is amongst the most prolific all-rounders, not only during his time, but in Test cricket history as well. The Englishman is one of the 15 select players to have scored 300 runs and taken 15 wickets in a Test series.

What’s even more interesting is that he is the only English all-rounder to have breached this double along with Andrew Flintoff; Ian Botham missed the mark by one run but his performance in the concerned rubber (1981 Ashes) is more than just the numbers; it uplifted an entire nation, or a team to say the least.

If we reduce the cut-off to 300 runs and 15 wickets, the list of achievement expands to 34, but Greig is again the only Englishman to have breached the double twice.

The only other players to have bettered Greig’s frequency are Sobers (5), Miller (4), and Botham (3). All, apart from Miller, played a substantial number of matches more than Greig.

Although more of a batting all-rounder, Greig bowling was more than useful, none more so than the one instance where he took 13 wickets in a match vs West Indies at Port of Spain (1972) is the 5^th best bowling performance by an England bowler from the 2^nd World war to the present day.

Apart from his utilities as a batsman and bowler, Greig was also an extremely good fielder as is evident from the number of catches he took (87). At the time of his retirement in 1977, only 5 fieldsmen; Colin Cowdrey (120), Wally Hammond (110), Gary Sobers (109), Ian Chappell (103), Bob Simpson (99) had taken more catches than Greig.

Removing the time filter to include all fieldsmen till the present day, Greig’s catches/inns ratio (.813) is amongst the best for a non-wicketkeeper. Only 6 fielders in the history of the game have a better ratio than Greig’s.

Table 3: Best Catches/Inns Ratio (Qual-Min 50 catches)

Player Name	Matches	Inns	Catches	Catches/Inn
Eknath Solkar	27	50	53	1.06
Darren Sammy	38	68	65	.956
Bob Simpson	62	117	110	.940
Brian Young	35	58	54	.931
Ross Taylor	69	129	112	.868
Stephen Fleming	111	199	171	.859
Tony Greig	58	107	87	.813
Mark Taylor	104	197	157	.797
Bruce Mitchell	42	71	56	.789
Graeme Hick	65	115	90	.783

As an all-rounder, Greig stands in absolute elite company when it comes to the difference between batting and bowling averages of top all-rounders across eras. Considering all-rounders having achieved a double 3000 runs and 100 wickets, Greig’s average difference (8.23) is bettered only by Gary Sobers, Jacques Kallis, and Imran Khan.

Now that’s cricketing royalty, because even if we reduce the career runs cut-off to 2000 runs, Greig’s difference is still only bettered by 5 players.

Table 4: Batting and bowling average difference (Min 3000 runs and 100 wickets)

Player Name	Matches	Runs	Bat Ave	Wkts	Bowl Ave	Difference
Gary Sobers	93	8032	57.78	235	34.03	23.75
Jacques Kallis	166	13289	55.37	292	32.65	22.72
Imran Khan	88	3807	37.69	362	22.81	14.88
Shaun Pollock	108	3781	32.31	421	23.11	9.20
Tony Greig	58	3599	40.48	141	32.20	8.28
Ian Botham	102	5200	33.54	383	28.4	5.14
Richard Hadlee	86	3124	27.16	431	22.29	4.87
Chris Cairns	62	3320	33.53	218	29.40	4.13
Kapil Dev	131	5248	31.05	434	29.64	1.41
Andrew Flintoff	79	3845	31.77	226	32.78	-1.01

The most remembered facet of Tony Greig’s personality is his enthusiastic calling of cricket action from behind the microphone, so much so that his exploits as a cricketer are easily forgotten.

But if there’s one thing that he carried over from his cricketing career to a commentator, was his passion and persona for the game on the field and in the commentator’s box.