The best batsman and bowler of the 1990s

[Days of Grace]

Here you are. . .


And the leading spinners in the world in the 90's
Test Matches

[B]Player	Tests	 W	 5w	 10w	 Avg	 S/R	 E/R	W/T[/B]

Warne	60	351	16	4	25.7	64.3	2.4	[B]5.85[/B]

Saqlain	24	107	9	2	29.2	65.0	2.7	4.46

Murali	48	227	17	2	27.1	65.6	2.5	4.73

Kumble	58	264	15	3	27.8	69.0	2.4	4.55

Don't think Warne took anywhere near that amount of wickets per test in the 1990s.

I'd say more like 4.5

 

[SJS]

Don't think Warne took anywhere near that amount of wickets per test in the 1990s.

I'd say more like 4.5

Spot on. The number of test matches played is a typo. It should be 80 and not 60. Since the Wkts/Test figure is calculated on the Excel sheet it wrongly shows 5.85.

The correct figure is 4.39 wkts per Test.

Thanks.

I should have spotted it myself since what I was trying to say was that Warne was not taking as many wickets as the fast bowlers like Waqar, Donald and Akram.

I suppose I was in a hurry to answer the query on my original post and go off to bed

 

[Days of Grace]

No worries.

I knew it couldn't be that high knowing that he had quite a number of bowlers to compete with to get wickets, unlike Hadlee or Murali, for instance.

That's why I have trouble analysing the Wickets per match statistic. It's not cut and dried.

 

[SJS]

No worries.

I knew it couldn't be that high knowing that he had quite a number of bowlers to compete with to get wickets, unlike Hadlee or Murali, for instance.

That's why I have trouble analysing the Wickets per match statistic. It's not cut and dried.

Its a very important statistic though. By itself it is an indicator of a bowlers importance in an attack and if you combine it with the strike rate it makes for for an excellent criteria to see relative destructive capabilities of bowlers.

Once you set a minimum Test matches played as an eligibility criteria you will find that of all the bowling stats this one is most likely to bring the best bowlers on top of a list. It is least affected by the changing conditions/states/regulations/standards of the game.

 

[Days of Grace]

However, the majority of bowlers pre-1914 have high WPM rates. Because there were more wickets falling per game and also they were usually one of only two or three good bowlers in the team.

These days, most attacks have four specialist bowlers with one backup who bowls his fair share.

So bowlers' WPM pre-1914 has to be adjusted somewhat.

Also, one also has to look at the bowler's teammates and how good they were. Grimmett and O'Reilly were the only decent bowlers for Australia during the 1930s and their WPM rates are high accordingly.

There's not many people on here who would say that Hadlee was a much, much better bowler than Marshall, for example. Yet their WPMs say that Hadlee averaged about half a wicket more than Marshall per match, a substantial margin.

I guess you would then bring in their relative strike-rates to balance it out, which is fair enough.


Lillee is the only bowler I have found who transcends this argument. Despite playing with Thomson and Alderman, without doubt in the top 100 test bowlers of all time, he averaged 5.07 wickets per match.

 

[biased indian]

Sachin & Curtly for me

 

[stephen]

I think that wickets per match is a misleading statistic. I much prefer average/strike rate/economy rate as an indicator. But above all, I prefer to listen to what those who faced them said about them.

I remember Mark Taylor saying that he always believed the most dangerous opposition bowler of the 90s was Ambrose. I know he was the bowler who frightened me the most.

In modern times you simply cannot go past McGrath, but during the 90s Ambrose was the most lethal around. In fact Ambrose would be very close to my all time XI:

Gavaskar
Hobbs
Bradman
Lara
Tendulkar
Sobers
Gilchrist
Warne
Marshall
Ambrose/Lillee/Hadlee/Akram/Garner/Holding
McGrath

As for batsmen it's pretty much a two horse race between Sachin and Lara.

 

[SJS]

However, the majority of bowlers pre-1914 have high WPM rates. Because there were more wickets falling per game and also they were usually one of only two or three good bowlers in the team.

These days, most attacks have four specialist bowlers with one backup who bowls his fair share.

So bowlers' WPM pre-1914 has to be adjusted somewhat.

Also, one also has to look at the bowler's teammates and how good they were. Grimmett and O'Reilly were the only decent bowlers for Australia during the 1930s and their WPM rates are high accordingly.

There's not many people on here who would say that Hadlee was a much, much better bowler than Marshall, for example. Yet their WPMs say that Hadlee averaged about half a wicket more than Marshall per match, a substantial margin.

I guess you would then bring in their relative strike-rates to balance it out, which is fair enough.


Lillee is the only bowler I have found who transcends this argument. Despite playing with Thomson and Alderman, without doubt in the top 100 test bowlers of all time, he averaged 5.07 wickets per match.

Thats right. The conditions before the Golden age (1895 to 1914) were very much loaded in the bowlers favour. The conditions were much more even in the Golden Age but conditions most like todays with batting wickets and big scores came about all over the world after the end of the first world war. So one does have to make an allowance for that.

Ideally, I prefer to compare the cricketers post 1920. That is much more comparable.

As for the validity of the Wkts/Test criteria, well no criteria by itself can ever give you the complete picture. Let me illustrate.

I took a list of bowlers post WW1 and only those who took over a hundred Test wickets. Now you can try to rank them by different criteria like this. . .

By average (runs/wicket) you get

1. Wardle
2. Davidson
3. Marshall
4. Garner
5. Ambrose
6. Adcock
7. Laker
8. Trueman
9. McGrath
10. Muralitharan

Now Johnny Wardle was a terrific bowler and but for being incredibly unlucky (besides being unorthodox) he might have ended with much more than his 102 wickets (28 Tests) but he sits awkward at the top here. Then you have Murali three spots below Laker. Its well known that more runs per wicket are scored today than they were 50 years ago.

Alternatively we could take the strike rate but a major problem with strike rates is when comparing different types of bowlers. Spinners by and large have higher strike rates and the fast men the lowest. The medium pacers tend to be in between. So while it is a good criteria in many respects it favours brute force against guile to put it differently.

This list looks like (top ten again)

By Strike Rate (Ball/wkt)

1. Waqar
2. Shoaib
3. Marshall
4. Donald
5. Thomson
6. Trueman
7. Lillee
8. Hadlee
9. Croft
10. Holding

As I said, no spinners. No O'rielly, Grimmett, Warne, Murali, no one.

By the way, Dale Steyn is number 1 in the list but I have taken out bowlers who are currently playing and nowhere near the end of their careers.

Economy rate is another criteria but that does more or less the opposite. Faster bowlers with lower strike rates tend to have higher economy rates than spinners and vice-versa (by and large mind you). Here goes...

1. Goddard
2. Verity
3. Wardle
4. Tate
5. Illingworth
6. Tayfield
7. O'Reilly
8. Valentine
9. Ramadhin
10. Davidson

Eight spinners and two medium fast bowlers. The next two on this list of those with an economy of under two were also spinners - Titmus and Gibbs. Again the list has names you might not have on your short lists.

I have also tried with the frequency of five and ten wicket hauls and the results are not the best though that does give you better results than what we see above.

Now try wickets per test and see what you get.

1. Muralitharan
2. Grimmett
3. O'Reilly
4. Steyn
5. Lillee
6. Hadlee
7. Warne
8. MacGill
9. Kumble
10. Marshall

Take away Stein for incomplete career and you have a very impressive list. Most contenders for the top spot are here. It is not a perfect criteria but I am afraid it is difficult to find anyone single which is. I am disappointed not to see Lindwall in that list for example. Someone else might be disappointed to see Imran missing but this is a statistical exercise after all.

Imran for example, did play long after he was no more a real strike bowler. So his strike rate as well as wickets per test would drop. The reasons will be different for different bowlers.

I think a wicket per test against non-minnows (over a long career) can be used as a fairly good indicator of a bowler's caliber - at least in the longer version of the game although it is still only an indicator albeit a very good one.

Let me put it this way. A 20 percent difference in bowling average (say between 20 and 22) is unlikely to tell much but a 20 % difference in wickets per Test (say between 5 and 4) says a lot.

Smaller differences dont tell much anyway irrespective of which index one uses.

Again its a personal opinion

 

[Bahnz]

Bowling: Warne

Batting: standing from an incredibly biased kiwi position, Martin Crowe. Yes I know he wasn't really the Batsman of the 90's, if for no other reason than because he only played until 1995, and even then he was absent more often than not. But Crowe's achievements during the rare occasions when he was on the field were immense, especially considering the village-side he was playing for at the time. His astonishing efforts against a rampant Waqar in Pakistan (who, incidentally, rated Crowe as possibly the best batsman he ever played against), his back to back hundreds on one leg against England in '94, his captaining New Zealand to our only Hadlee-less victory over Australia, and of course his ridiculous performance in the 1992 World Cup.

From an unbiased point of view, either Lara or Mark Waugh.

 

[Ilovecric]

I think that wickets per match is a misleading statistic. I much prefer average/strike rate/economy rate as an indicator. But above all, I prefer to listen to what those who faced them said about them.

I remember Mark Taylor saying that he always believed the most dangerous opposition bowler of the 90s was Ambrose. I know he was the bowler who frightened me the most.

In modern times you simply cannot go past McGrath, but during the 90s Ambrose was the most lethal around. In fact Ambrose would be very close to my all time XI:

Gavaskar
Hobbs
Bradman
Lara
Tendulkar
Sobers
Gilchrist
Warne
Marshall
Ambrose/Lillee/Hadlee/Akram/Garner/Holding
McGrath

As for batsmen it's pretty much a two horse race between Sachin and Lara.

I don't understand how Mcgrath is a must but ambrose isn't, even tho ambrose has a better record and was more dangerous duing the time they played together ?

 

[The Sean]

I don't understand how Mcgrath is a must but ambrose isn't, even tho ambrose has a better record and was more dangerous duing the time they played together ?

Records are pretty comparable really - McGrath more wickets with a better strike rate, Ambrose with a better average.

 

[Ilovecric]

Records are pretty comparable really - McGrath more wickets with a better strike rate, Ambrose with a better average.

Seriously, more wickets ? Obviously, if he's playing 30-40 more test matches than what ambrose played.

At the end of the day mcgrath didn't dominate top players, so putting him in an all time 11 would be risky because he doesn't have a history of destroying top batting line-ups like ambrose.

There is no way Mcgrath is a better and more useful bowler than ambrose. He may have a good record but check his opponents.

 

[Top_Cat]

Seriously, more wickets ? Obviously, if he's playing 30-40 more test matches than what ambrose played.

At the end of the day mcgrath didn't dominate top players, so putting him in an all time 11 would be risky because he doesn't have a history of destroying top batting line-ups like ambrose.

There is no way Mcgrath is a better and more useful bowler than ambrose. He may have a good record but check his opponents.

Wat.

 

[Ilovecric]

Wat.

Give an example of Mcgrath dominating and destroying a top batting line up.

 

[The Sean]

At the end of the day mcgrath didn't dominate top players

Oh dear.

 

[Top_Cat]

Give an example of Mcgrath dominating and destroying a top batting line up.

Sooo, let me guess how this is going to play out; I give an example (say, 8/38 against Stewart/Atherton/Hussain/Thorpe) and you say "Not as good as Australia's whom Curtly took 7/1 against in Perth, Curtly wins" despite that McGrath, obviously, never got to play against Australia because he was too busy being the sharpened edge of their attack.

Am I close?

 

[Ilovecric]

There are two ways to look at records, you can look at the overall record and look at the details.

Check Dale steyn's record he's currently running circles around all batting line-ups, but the fact is most batsman these days don't avg 40 or above in test cricket, so the quality of wicket he's taking is very much under-valued.

 

[Ilovecric]

Sooo, let me guess how this is going to play out; I give an example (say, 8/38 against Stewart/Atherton/Hussain/Thorpe) and you say "Not as good as Australia's whom Curtly took 7/1 against in Perth, Curtly wins" despite that McGrath, obviously, never got to play against Australia because he was too busy being the sharpened edge of their attack.

Am I close?

All I want to say is the quality of wicket a bowler takes should matter, and because ambrose has taken more wickets of really good players he would more likely do better in an all time 11 game than mcgrath.

 

[Top_Cat]

I look at the players, not records so much. McGrath = Ambrose in my book.

 

[G.I.Joe]

The bowler I feared the most when India was playing, was McGrath. So yeah, imo McGrath > Ambrose.