When India won their first World Cup — in the longer white ball format — in 1983, their heroes were the so-called “bits-and-pieces” cricketers. That was an almost-derisive term for players who could bat a bit and bowl a bit but may not have found a place in the (Test) team for their batting or bowling alone. Only skipper Kapil Dev was considered a genuine all-rounder.
This was because it wasn’t understood that the definition of ‘all-rounder’ depended on the format being played.
It was only in hindsight that experts realised players like Mohinder Amarnath, Roger Binny, Kirti Azad, Sandeep Patil, Madan Lal deserved to be called all-rounders because each was capable of bowling their full quota of overs and all of them could threaten as batters in any slot. One-Day Internationals were just over decade old then and hadn’t yet attained the sophistication it would later in terms of strategy and tactics.
