Today, everybody is an all-rounder....!!!

Yes, that is true. Take any field (not just cricket!). Most of them are all-rounders. They need to be, to beat the rest and surge ahead.

Let us start with cricket. Today even the batsman # 11 can bat effectively, to thwart the best of the bowlers, frustrating them in the process. If the front-line batsman is asked to bowl a crucial over, he can bowl well and take a wicket or two. The line between specialist batsman and the specialist bowler is getting blurred. A leading bowler in the National team may be an opening batsman in his State team. So, today there are more all-rounders than the earlier days. At least one of your skills (bowling or batting or even fielding) may get you a place in the team. However there were genuine all-rounders in the game in those days (Garfield Sobers, Kapil Dev.....)

The politicians come from various backgrounds (mostly from the film world, especially in Tamilnadu, India). They are expected to give their opinions on any subject under the sun, be it economics, defense, world trade, finance, human rights...., and the list goes on. Are the politicians 'masters' of all the above subjects? They may not know the A,B,C,D of any of the subjects. But they give extempore speeches on any subject you raise. They are so confident of whatever they 'utter'. Blind courage, nonchalance are their strengths. None of his followers can question what he speaks about. It is for the opposite party politicians to find fault in what this man says. 

Another filed where the number of all-rounders keep increasing is 'cine field'. Earlier we used to see, a hero, a villain, a comedian, a character artiste etc. Now all the above characters are rolled into one. The hero does comedy scenes; the comedian does stunt scenes and looks like a hero; the hero turns into a villain and vice versa.... If the hero cannot become a villain, then his brother (double act) is the villain in the story. We don't find specialist comedians these days.

In the avenue of industry, a start-up entrepreneur has to know a bit of finance, administration, marketing, human resource to become successful in his endeavor. Of course he should be a master of his chosen field (may be technical expertise). That should be his forte. If he does not have adequate knowledge in the other areas, there is every likelihood of him getting cheated. Though he need not be an all-rounder (in the real sense), he should be having sufficient knowledge in all other fields, apart from being an expert in his chosen field. Even the employees in the industries are expected to multi-skill these days, for the sake of retaining their jobs. The world has changed irrevocably!

People used to say he is 'a jack of all trade but master of NONE'. It should now be changed to he is 'a jack of all trade and master of ONE'.