Murali v Warne

Muttiah Muralitharan or Shane Warne? That's perhaps one of the most fascinating debates going around in cricket (even if one of the protagonists has retired), and it's only likely to gather further steam with the other's decision to quit Test cricket in a couple of weeks. Both bowlers will undoubtedly go down as legends, and yet each camp has its staunch set of supporters, who not only lift their own hero, but also, unfortunately, enjoy tearing the achievements of the other. This column attempts to do away with all the other aspects, and compares them only on the basis of their stats, looking at their numbers along certain meaningful parameters.

One of the pet peeves of the Murali baiters is his record against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. It's not his fault that he has played so many matches against them, but it's also a fact that those games have significantly improved his overall stats: in 25 Tests against those two teams, Murali has taken 176 wickets at an average of 15.09 and a strike rate of 42 - both those stats are much better than his overall career numbers. By contrast, Warne has only played three Tests against those two sides. Taking this disparity into account, all Tests against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe have been excluded for the purpose of this analytical exercise.

What's immediately obvious is that Murali's tally of 792 wickets shrinks to 616 when his haul against those two teams is excluded; Warne's aggregate, meanwhile, drops only by 17, to 691. However, while Murali's average rises by about two runs, it's still marginally better than Warne's 25.40. The difference, though, becomes miniscule.

Both bowlers have found Indian batsmen difficult to bowl to, and that's indicated in their numbers, though Warne's average is much poorer, and he only has one five-for against India in 14 Tests. Murali has also been far more influential in wins, taking, on average, more than eight wickets in these 32 Tests. (That, though, is also a telling commentary on Sri Lanka's dependence on him; Australia, on the other hand, had several bowling match-winners.)

If Murali's advantage was the number of matches he played in spin-friendly conditions, then Warne's plus was the support he got from the rest of the Australian bowlers. Murali's stats at home are much better than Warne's, but overseas his average goes up to almost 29. Both bowlers struggled in India, with their averages sailing well into the 40s. Murali supporters often claim Warne had the advantage of playing against England repeatedly, and the stats below suggest that's an opportunity Murali would have relished as well: in the six Tests Murali played in England, he averaged eight wickets per match, and nailed his victims at less than 20 apiece. A few more Tests there during his peak years surely wouldn't have hurt his career stats.

Arguably the biggest difference for the two spinners has been the kind of support they've received throughout their careers. Whereas Warne had the likes of Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie to soften the batsmen (and also eat into his share of wickets), Murali only had Chaminda Vaas as a regular high-class bowler in the line-up. The table below compares the performances of the support acts to Warne and Murali. In the 106 Tests he played against the top teams, the other bowlers in the Sri Lankan team took only 889 wickets to Murali's 611, and conceded almost 40 runs per wicket. There were only three ten-wicket hauls by other bowlers to Murali's 16, with Vaas getting two and Ajantha Mendis one. That meant Murali had to do most of the work himself, and he did, bowling 33% of the team's overs and taking 41% of the wickets.

Warne, on the other hand, had all the support he needed (and perhaps some he didn't). The Australian bowlers took almost twice as many wickets as the Sri Lankans did, and three times as many five-fors (69 to 23). All that meant Warne only took 28% of all wickets taken by Australia in the matches he played.

With McGrath and Gillespie often accounting for the top-order wickets, Warne usually didn't have the opportunity to have a go at them, which is reflected in his percentage of top-order victims - lower compared to Murali, who often came on to bowl when the opposition hadn't lost too many wickets. Warne winkled out the tail more often, with the last three batsmen accounting for almost 27% of his victims, compared with less than 23% for Murali.

It's hardly surprising that Murali's list of batsmen dismissed most often is dominated by players from the subcontinent (and a Zimbabwean; though Mark Boucher heads the list), while Warne's list is dominated by Englishmen. But to check the averages of individual batsmen against them, we need ball-by-ball data, which Cricinfo has for all international games from May 2001. The next two tables look at the performances of some of the top batsmen against Murali and Warne over these years. Interestingly, both played almost exactly the same number of matches during this period, and had very similar averages: Murali averaged 23.86 in 54 Tests (against the top teams only), while Warne averaged 23.94 from 56 matches.

During this period, Brian Lara clearly had the better of Murali, but Sachin Tendulkar's record is pretty ordinary, as is Kevin Pietersen's. Most of the other Indian batsmen have done well against him, though.

Warne's stats are a mixed bag too: he has superb numbers against Andrew Strauss and Marcus Trescothick, but Pietersen and Jacques Kallis have handled him much better. He didn't bowl much against the Indians during this period, and not at all to Tendulkar.

Most of the numbers above suggest there's little to choose between the two bowlers, which is exactly as it should be when comparing two legends of the game.