*Official* Warne vs Murali Discussion

[Ikki]

I know the definition of first class cricket. I know sometimes people count Tests + domestic in 'First Class' stats. I was thinking perhaps the FC figures you quoted did this as well, because it did not specify 'domestic FC record'.

From the link you quoted:

Oh, it's the Cricinfo figures. But even if you take away all his Tests it's the same record. His average a bit worse, his SR a bit better.

 

[Matteh]

Thing with comparing statistics is that you have to take on board that Shane Warne is a legspinner and that until he came along is was the norm for a legspinner to bowl at least one boundary ball an over purely due to the nature of the action. Therefore his average is going to be higher than Murali's because of his higher econ rate due to bowling the harder skill to master consistency in.

 

[Francis]

I originally was going to ignore the cesspool that is a Warne/Murali debate, but was pleasently suprised to see some good points made in here that don't try and compare how great each player is, but rather compares their styles.

One thing noticeable about their bowling styles is the fact that Warne's style is such that he will always enjoy a pacy and bouncy pitch much more than Murali would.

I think this has most to do with Warne bowling style. Unlike say, Stuart MacGill, Warne's leggies don't just go from right to left, he imparts overspin on the ball. As a former leggie it's something I tried, and I inadvertedly bowled a top spinner. It's an incredibly difficult thing to do. For me, Warne bowled his best when he had two things. The first is drift, and it's something we didn't see a lot of from Warne late in his career. I think people forget how much he actually got the ball to drift and it made things, at times, virtually impossible for batsmen. The second is bounce, which is a reason why batsmen nicked so many balls.

Warne's going to thrive on wickets like the GABBA, which offer an incredible amount of bounce.

Murali's wares depend mostly on turn and mystery balls (doosra for him, if he were a leggie, it would be the googly) and mostly he uses it well when the ball holds up off the pitch.

I agree 100%. I'd like to expand on that, but really you hit the nail on the head.

At the end of the day, for me, Warne is 5% more likely to bounce back after a pounding and produce a great match changing spell out of nowhere than Murali and Murali is 5% more likely than Warne to NOT have an off day.... It comes down to your personal preference... For instance, in selecting a World XI, if I pick an attack of McGrath, Akram and Ambrose, then I would definitely want Warne as my spinner because I want that 5% more of match winning ability than the 5% extra consistency.. But if my attack was Akram, Marshall and Younis (at his peak, that is), then I would want Murali simply because in that case I would value that 5% more consistency higher..... It comes down to personal preference and I don't think there is any real way one can be claimed to be better than the other unequivocally...

This was a fantastic post. And it's blatantly true. I've always felt Warne succeeded at times when other bowlers couldn't. Part of the Warne charisma was that he could obtain wickets from a force of will ala Ian Botham. Even at the end of his career when he really only had two main deliveries, he could probe and manipulate batsmen. Conversely, I think we all know Warne can't bowl for as long as Murali or with as much accuracy.



I don't mind ranking cricketers, in fact ranking sportsmen is somewhat of a hobby of mine, but as time's gone by I'm starting to dislike comparisons. There is no comparison between the two bowlers here because their circumstances are too different.

Most of all, I don't like how comparisons detract from both players achievements.

With Murali people say:

* He's taken wickets off cheap opposition more than others.
- Now that is true, but no other bowler has been so prolific against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, and yet this somehow counts against Murali. Murali can't help it, he can only play the teams he's given. If you're a Murali fan you clearly sense that it's unfair to take away those accomplishments because what he's done is remarkable. T

With Warne people say:

*He fed off McGrath
-By Warne's own admission he enjoyed the pressure McGrath put on the batsmen when he bowled. But nobody bowls Warne's deliveries but Warne. When he bowled with McGrath and bowled a loose delivery, Warne got killed. Yet when he got a wicket his achievement is diminished when you say he couldn't have got it without McGrath. Realistically, good deliveries get you wickets. Unless teams are staved for runs and feel the need to play a few shots, I don't think there's any help to had. Because of the Warne/Murali comparisons, the impact McGrath had on Warne's stats is beyong overstated. And what's more, people never reverse it and say "McGrath has awesome stats courtesy of Warne", something I also think it condusive of the Warne/Murali debate.

I have an opinion on who might be better, but certainly there's no accurate comparison, and in all likelihood each bowler is better than the other depending on the circumstances in which they bowl under. But I've grown an extreme distaste for comparisons because they're beginning to detract from each bowler's accomplishments. I'm as guilty as anybody for over-analysing the pros and cons each bowler has, and in the end it started to detract from each bowlers accomplishments.

 

[honestbharani]

Actually, I think Murali has begun to understand Warne's mastery in that kind of condition and you can also hear him in interviews nowadays more interested in bounce than spin. Another weapon that I think Warne used and Murali now uses much more is beating batsmen in flight. I think he has already started getting better.

However, I think, for the point of this debate, Warne was also very adept at getting spin in pitches that had less bounce. It's not like Warne doesn't turn a ball, and his record of playing in Sri Lanka is quite outstanding. I think Murali gets a lot of speed off the pitch. If he could flight it well, it would really do batsmen in.

yeah, actually, I didn't mean that Warney can't turn the ball much or that Murali can't get it to turn quick, just meant that Warne is better at getting it go quickly off the track just that bit mor than Murali and Murali is just that bit more skilled in getting big spin on the ball (both ways, Warney never had much of a googly, no?)...


I was more like pointing towards how their respective styles of bowling were geared towards getting the most of their respective home pitches.

 

[silentstriker]

Thing with comparing statistics is that you have to take on board that Shane Warne is a legspinner and that until he came along is was the norm for a legspinner to bowl at least one boundary ball an over purely due to the nature of the action. Therefore his average is going to be higher than Murali's because of his higher econ rate due to bowling the harder skill to master consistency in.

Undoubtedly, leg spin is a hard tool to master. But that should have no bearing on the evaluation of your performance.

In any case, I think it's a bit of a myth that Murali has better stats than Warne. I did a ranking of bowlers based on each place that they've bowled, and counted each country equally (1/10 of their rating), to get rid of the home bias, and Warne came out (just ahead) ahead of Murali. Warne certainly has a case for being the better bowler, and certainly the better cricketer with his added usefulness at #8.

Here is the thread in case anyone is interested.

 

[Francis]

I'm enjoying talking about their respective styles...

I was more like pointing towards how their respective styles of bowling were geared towards getting the most of their respective home pitches.

Truth be told, aside from when he bowled at the GABBA, I thought the Australian pitches weren't tailor-made for Shane Warne. Adelaide and the WACCA especially made life very difficult for Warne. Some of the best spells I've seen Warne bowl were at Adelaide where it just became a battle between the possibles and probables.

[edit - oh and I wish people would just give up on the stats because they're influenced by 100s of variables, many of which people never detect and on top of that, there's 100s of different ways to read them.]

 

[honestbharani]

I'm enjoying talking about their respective styles...



Truth be told, aside from when he bowled at the GABBA, I thought the Australian pitches weren't tailor-made for Shane Warne. Adelaide and the WACCA especially made life very difficult for Warne. Some of the best spells I've seen Warne bowl were at Adelaide where it just became a battle between the possibles and probables.

[edit - oh and I wish people would just give up on the stats because they're influenced by 100s of variables, many of which people never detect and on top of that, there's 100s of different ways to read them.]

yeah, you made some great points in the earlier post as well.


The thing is, Warney has showed that he can turn the ball A LOT as well utillize bounce and pace off the wicket. As you said, given that he could get the ball to turn square naturally, most Australian wickets were not the best for him per se. But the thing is, given that he played so much of his cricket there, he developed the sort of variations and things that would help him get the most out of those tracks, unlike Murali, who almost never had to play there and didn't HAVE to get wickets there....


For me, both of them can get their stock ball to turn a mile but if you look at their variations, you will see the impact playing their domestic cricket in Australia and Sri Lanka has had on Warne and Murali, respectively. I think if Warney was born in Sri Lanka, and Murali in Australia, I am almost positive each would have ended up with similar strike rates and averages as they have now... I mean, Murali would have had similar stats to Warne has now and Warne would have had similar stats as to Murali (of course, the longevity and fitness stuff would have come in, hence I m only mentioning SR and Average, not the actual no. of wickets.).

 

[JBH001]

For once a decent Murali vs Warne thread? Best get in quick before it deteriorates!

At the end of the day, for me, Warne is 5% more likely to bounce back after a pounding and produce a great match changing spell out of nowhere than Murali and Murali is 5% more likely than Warne to NOT have an off day.... It comes down to your personal preference... For instance, in selecting a World XI, if I pick an attack of McGrath, Akram and Ambrose, then I would definitely want Warne as my spinner because I want that 5% more of match winning ability than the 5% extra consistency.. But if my attack was Akram, Marshall and Younis (at his peak, that is), then I would want Murali simply because in that case I would value that 5% more consistency higher..... It comes down to personal preference and I don't think there is any real way one can be claimed to be better than the other unequivocally...

That is a pretty good summation for mind. Its also among the reasons that I thought Warne the better bowler for most of their career (in fact some of my early posts on this issue around 2003/2004 reflect that) as I thought that Warne simply had a better cricketing brain and better bowling nous (not to denigrate Murali's mind either, he has quite an under-rated brain I think - look at his set and dismissal of Ponting in the 1st innings at Hobart - its just not as good as Warnies) than Murali. However, over 2004/2005 as the weight of Murali's achivements started to sink in (62 5 fers and 20 10 fer for example) and I undertook a greater consideration of the load he has had to carry (as I said elsewhere on the board he is, afaik, the only spinner in the history of cricket to have carried his country's attack) over his career, it seemed to me that Murali had claim to be the slightly better bowler. I dont want to get into an argument over that now - in my mind it is best to wait until Murali hangs up his boots (probably around 2008/2009) as that will provide us a clearer picture of the two men comparatively. And indeed, as seems increasingly likely, a comparision may never do any real justice to either of them.

I have to start work now, so I will come back to this later. But I do want to add a couple of quick comments. I really admired Warnie's control of spin in the latter third of his career - especially his ability to add varying degrees of turn to the ball. Murali, on the other hand, exhibits a very 'subcontinental' desire to spin the ball as much as possible (which explains the crazy dip he gets). It would be nice to see Murali work on imparting variable degrees of turn to the ball a la Warne but he may not want to do so if it means giving up his dip (as unlike Warne and unlike classical off spinners he lacks classical off spinners drift).

 

[Athlai]

Isn't there a match where Murali bowls a few leggies?

 

[archie mac]

Isn't there a match where Murali bowls a few leggies?

One Day game in Aust. After he was called by Edmudson (spelling)

 

[Richard]

Emerson.

Possibly the worst Umpire in history.

 

[archie mac]

Emerson.

Possibly the worst Umpire in history.

Ah yes another one who had some guts to back his belief

I always like the English fieldsman who said to the other umpire; "glad I was not in the trenches with you!"

I might save that for the quote quiz

 

[Richard]

Ah yes another one who had some guts to back his belief

No, far from it, one to act on premeditation, without the interests of the game at heart but more his own I-shall-act-how-I-see-fit-and-not-how-I'm-told, and most stupidly of all one to argue the notion that his eyes were superior to the eyes of science.

 

[silentstriker]

Hey, it took six pages....that's got to be a new record.

 

[GIMH]

Murali is a chucker.

Shane Warne is a drug cheat.

Thread closed.

 

[Richard]

Hey, it took six pages....that's got to be a new record.

Took 3 for me.

But yah... apologies for my part.

 

[JBH001]

Isn't there a match where Murali bowls a few leggies?

He has bowled a fair few leggies in his time, and not just in that ODI in Australia. But I dont think he has done so for a while. I was disappointed to see him not trying a few leggies in Australia - just for variation. Apparently, for a while, he had been a leg spin bowler in schools cricket before switching back to off spin as he felt it was easier.

From what I remember, leg spin was his variation of choice back in the day when all he had was the big offie (I remember him bowling Rhodes behind his legs in Colombo with a leggie after Rhodes had scored a hundred in a test match in Colombo in the early 90s). He can bowl some decent leggies too. Here is a clip from a match against SA a few years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UUXgc1rLMQ

 

[archie mac]

Hey, it took six pages....that's got to be a new record.

Don't blame me this time

 

[JBH001]

 

[Tom Halsey]

I can't believe anyone can still seriously question Murali's action - no idea whether Arch does think he chucks it or not but there are certainly people on here who do. If you can't accept the science then it's pointless arguing with you tbh.