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For the love of Murali
Who's greater, Warne or the Sri Lankan with 800? We can finally lay that argument to rest
Andrew Fernando
July 25, 2010
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Players/Officials:
Muttiah Muralitharan
| Shane Warne
Teams:
Sri Lanka
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While the football and water polo supporters were out getting drunk and chasing girls in high school, we stayed at home and calculated Tendulkar's innings-to-century ratio in our underwear. Instead of taking our wives to dinner or watering the azealas like regular folk, we spend all week crunching the numbers for history's greatest cricketing battles. Bradman v Larwood, Donald v Atherton, Arjuna Ranatunga v an ever-expanding waistline.
Murali's retirement was, of course, a perfect excuse for us all to indulge in this odd fetish once more. With a ready-made rival in Shane Warne, it was all too easy for the cricket world to be whipped up into a squealing, adolescent statistics frenzy. Who was more effective against top-class opposition? Who could extract more wickets on an unhelpful surface? Which of them looked better just after a shower?
But for all the stats, there were still several aspects of the Warne-Murali debate that haven't been laboriously scrutinised. As such, in the interest of creating a more complete dialogue, let's take a look at a few areas where the Sri Lankan holds the upper hand over his rival.
Deception
This is an important weapon for any spinner. Murali's greatest triumph in this area is that almost everyone still thinks the man is an offspinner, though he uses his wrist to impart spin. Murali is really just your average legspin bowler who simply began by exclusively bowling the googly before introducing the legbreak later on. He then took credit for "perfecting" the doosra and everybody ate it up without stopping to think. How hard is it for a wrist spinner to bowl a delivery that leaves the right-hander really? Stuart MacGill could do it - so, not that hard.
Photographability
If cricket was a beauty pageant, Murali would definitely have picked up the prize for Miss Photogenic. Unlike with those near-naked pics of Simon Katich and Shane Watson, not many thinking cricket fans got to admire Murali's bulging line and length or his washboard footwork, but that set of intense, ballooning eyeballs at the point of delivery has to be one of the most enduring cricketing images of the last two decades. Warne had that thinning crown by the end of his career, and who wants to look at that?
Sledging
It's due to Warne's incompetence as a sledger than Murali's proficiency at it that he gets this one. Warne had a reputation for being in-your-face confrontational as a bowler. But we as viewers will never know what he said to batsmen on the field, so we will have to rely on his off-pitch comments. Why would you, for example, in a spat with Arjuna Ranatunga, make fun of his weight ("swallowed a sheep or something") when you had recently been banned for taking diuretics? Arjuna's retort ("better swallow a sheep than what you've been swallowing") is clever, I suppose, but make no mistake, this is Warne diving face first into a verbal slam.
Comedy
Following in a rich tradition stretching from Charlie Chaplin to Jim Carrey, Murali took physical comedy to a new level with his batting. In an era where talented others like Sreesanth did their best to bring us joy by making sweet, sweet air-love, Murali emerges as the undisputable champion of cricketing japery with his immensely uncoordinated swipes and irresponsible baseball swats. His comedic magnum opus was a recent ODI where he won the Man-of-the-Match award mainly for his batting. Sure, Warne was no slouch either, with his sexual trysts and trouble-riddled career providing plenty of hilarious mileage. But if it is the controversial type of comic relief you are after, there is a whole bunch of very talented funny men doing the cricket circuit nowadays who have Warne beat hands down. I believe they are collectively called Team Pakistan.
Guinea pig
Perhaps the most "tested" cricketer in history, Murali performed the role of cricket's lab rat flawlessly. Repeating the experiment multiple times to ensure accuracy, analysed using the latest high-tech equipment, and being part of a scientific process that redefined our understanding of the subject. Every bowler in the world is now classed a chucker. You couldn't really have asked for a better guinea pig. If his chosen field had been pathology, they probably would have cured AIDS by now. Warne too had his own creative uses of modern technology, but alas, produced slightly less inspiring results.
Andrew Fernando is a student at Auckland University. He blogs at www.cricketordeath.com
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Explore Page 2
Oh man there are actually people who take page 2 articles seriously. It's for fun people. No wonder all of them either Bedi-the nobody followers or Antagonized Aussies who still think the 'pill swallower' is the greatest bowler ever. Warne is as good as Magic Johnson was in the NBA but Murali is Jordan. Murali has a better record against Indians - the best spin players while Warne's record is terrible and Murali is the one who was named by Wisden as the best bowler in the world.
Posted byit's not murali's fault that he got to play against bangladesh and zimbabwe a lot more than warne, the point is when he got the chance, he made the most of it, just as warne played a lot against england and south africa and got loads of wickets against them. and just as murali doesn't have a very good record in australia, warne doesn't have a flattering record in india either. warne didn't have to bowl against the aussies in australia, but again he might have got more test wickets if he hadn't been banned, both were outstanding bowlers, warne was a better batsman, murali a better fielder,i think overall, both were gr8 cricketers who shouldn't be compared.
Posted by Vijay.Naik on (July 26 2010, 17:02 PM GMT)Hey guys!!! come on... Both are great cricketers in their own way. We should not compare both and conclude a topic. Australians had lot of Test Cricket with England, NZ and SA, so Warne took lot of wicket against them, similarly SL played most of their tests with India and Pak, and he has upper hand here. Where Warne had McGrath, McDermott, Brett Lee who set him up the stage. Murali played against the Batsmen who were outstanding on sub-continental pitches. Both the players contributed for the Cricket and their countries. We should salute them and stop arguing whether the left eye is best or the right one. Both are the eye of spin bowling in world cricket. Cheers!!!
Posted by cubkel on (July 26 2010, 14:53 PM GMT)I am afraid those who persist in trying to knock Murali do not base their arguments on facts. The usual rubbish comes up that Murali took most of his wickets against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe and lower order batsmen. This is totally incorrect.The facts are his average, econ rate 5 for and 10wkt hauls are much better than Warnes. Murali took 112 wkts vs England, 104 vs SAfrica, 105 vs India, 80 vs Pakistan and only 89 vs Bangladesh, 87 vs Zimbabwe 82 each vs WIndies and New Zealand. Please check Warnies tally. Also Murali had 247 3rd, and 419 4th wkt victims. The others are minor while as you say Warnies wickets were mostly lower as he had Glen etc bowling first up.Check your facts before you make stupid assumptions and statements that are totally incorrect.Maybe you should get Statsguru to give you the comparative figures. One more it was only Darrel Hair and his brother in law who umpired whilst on stress leave that no balled Murali.Hair even called Murali when he bowled leg breaks.
Posted bythis is absolute, pure crap! yes murali is a great bowler and his achievements should be duly recognised, but to say he is the best spinner in of all time is just ridiculous. lets start with deception. murali is not and never has been a 'traditional leg spinner' who started out bowling googlies, you cannot bend your arm if you bowl REAL leg spin. there is a youtube video of murali bowling leg spin, i suggest you watch it before you write another insanely stupid article. The way Warney outthought batsmen as well should be taken into account, all murali ever did was bowl on dustbowls to bangladeshi's and zimbabweans with half the team crowded round the bat - how is that clever?? Leg spin is also a much harder art than off spin - it is ridiculously hard to land leggies on the spot ball after ball, over after over. take a look at the '05 ashes campaign to see Shane Keith Warne, the greatest spinner who ever lived, at his best. Also how many wickets did murali take against Australia???
Posted by Thusi_J on (July 26 2010, 05:36 AM GMT)For all those who are reluctant admit that Murali is the greatest, pls note some arguments which I would like to highlight. Some argue that Murali, played more matches in Spin friendly wickets ( Sub continent ) than else where, true its an inherent character we have to live with, but the answer remains inside the argument also… Sub continent pitches are spin friendly….. what about their batman… anyone dare saying Sub continent batsmen are really pathetic against spin ? in fact they are world best against spin and Sri Lanka had played majority of there matches with either India or Pakistan. Counter argument also becomes offensive for Warne. Since when you are given 5 matches against England or New Zeland every year guaranteed it's a toll free highway for Warne.
Posted byMurli is dark knight and to the commenters I would say "why so serious" :P
Posted by HaVoKry on (July 26 2010, 04:19 AM GMT)@boingo again, "Throw in the fact that the rules were changed just for him" The rules were NOT hanged just for him. They were changed for everyone, as 99% of bowlers in world cricket were "chucking" according tot he old rules.
Posted byhttp://stats.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/player/49636.html?class=1;template=results;type=bowling
Posted by HaVoKry on (July 26 2010, 04:18 AM GMT)@boingo, you said ":) In all seriousness though Warne was the much better bowler as he took more wickets in the top 6 than Murali.". Where are you getting this stat from? Murali took 67.5% of his wickets in the positions 1-7, while Warne only took 62.9% at the same positions. Sorry, but Warne loses there too.