Hi guys I'm new to this forum. I'm huge cricket fan who appreciates good cricket the team I support being Sri Lanka. Naturally I thought I should dive into this Murali Warne debate!
It goes without saying that both are all time great bowlers, however for me Murali is definitely greater for the following reasons.
1) Murali has a better average against every team barring Pakistan.
2) Murali may have had more opportunity to take wickets than Warne, because he was part of a weaker bowling attack, but his greatness is highlighted by the fact that he kept his average so low, even though he had to often build pressure himself. In fact it is found that Warne actually performs worse in matches without Mcgrath.
3) As mentioned people go on about Zimbabwe and Bangladesh being easy scalps and while this is true, we cannot just discount those wickets completely. They are lower quality wickets, but I would point out that Zimbabwe before the 2003 world cup were not so bad, and also when Warne started his career he captured wickets against Sri Lanka, who at that point were a minnow! In addition to this Warne never had to bowl against his own batting line up and took a higher percentage of tailend wickets compared to Murali.
I saw a thread on this forum
http://www.cricketweb.net/forum/cricket-chat/48524-how-valuable-wicket.html which basically proves that Murali's discount rate is SIGNIFICANTLY SUPERIOR to Warne's. Discount rate is calculate using both the bowling average and the quality of wickets taken, making the Zimbabwe and Bangladesh argument redundant
4) Although Murali's record in Australia is atrocious, it is a misleading statistic. He played 3 tests there at a time when he was nowhere near the bowler he became. The one off super test he performed well, and even though the 2 tests in 2007 were poor, it is too small a sample to judge him from.
5) ICC Test Rankings for bowlers, which is an objective measure factoring in strength of opposition and overall match situation, has Murali clearly ahead of Warne. Not only does he have a higher peak, he has spent far longer with a rating over 900, the rating for an all time great player.
6) Most batsman who faced both Murali and Warne at their peaks, claimed they found Murali harder to face. Eg Bell, Flintoff, Pieterson, Ganguly. Atherton does not count since he faced Murali before he bowled the doosra.
In summary by almost every single objective statisitical measure Murali is found to be superior to Warne. I believe a combination of a lack of media hype, the fact that Murali played for a low key side, Warne's headline personality and the fact that Warne played 36 tests v England as oppposed to 13 that Murali played, leads to a significant number of people preferring Warne. While subjectively Warne may be preferred, eg bowling style etc, in terms of pure effectiveness as a bowler Murali is noticeably better. In fact I believe Mcgrath and Murali would be a much closer comparison, than Warne and Murali
