Was the Big 4 Allrounders a creation of the Media ?

According to Sir Richard Hadlee

Greatest Opponents During His Career were the Big 4 Allrounders.

"The 'Battle of the Allrounders' during the 1980's brought Ian Botham (England), Kapil Dev (India), Imran Khan (Pakistan) and myself together as opponents. The will and the desire to outplay each-other brought fierce competition.
Other players: Viv Richards (West Indies), David Gower (England), Sunil Gavaskar (India), Geoff Boycott (England), Javed Miandad (Pakistan) and Greg Chappell (Australia) were very difficult batsmen to dismiss."

Its quite ovious that the battle of all rounders was not the creation of the media but was acknowledged by the players them selves.

60's Sobers - The best all rounder of all times.
70's Hadlee and Botham
80's Imran Khan and Kapil Dev
90's Lance Klusener and Sanath Jayasuriya00's Jaques Kallis and Andrew Flintoff.

Some would say that Chris Cairns definately needs a mention in the group, but, arguably, where Chris lacked as compared to the listed above is the ability to completely dominate the opposition for long periods. A quality which even Cairns had but for short periods...

Now within these guys, some were great in one skill of the game. Like hadlee was by far the best bowler. Reached 300 wickets faster than anybody else in the game.