*Official* Warne vs Murali Discussion

[JBH001]

Clearly it's groundhog day in this thread.

 

[Cricketismylife]

Ikki you have just said it...

For one, Warne had competition for upper order wickets. This means in many matches through no fault of his own the batsmen with the higher averages would be taken out by teammates. And if Warne has conceded runs to said batsmen and then takes a batsman with a lower average it hurts him. Something which is far less likely to occur for Murali who also tended to be brought on earlier.

You have just admitted that Warne had to take a batsman with a lower average and Murali didn't! So in that way Murali had it harder and had to get the wickets of better batsmen., As their respective career averages don't show the averages of the batsmen they got out, the fact that Murali had to take more batsman with higher average than Warne hasnt even been factored in, which actually benefits Warne's stats when compared to Murali

Returning back to Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, like a broken record I will say it again; completely removing those 2 teams as if they never happened is completely unfair. Effectively, you are claiming all those wickets are worthless. Of course they hold a lower value but are certainly not worthless. Murali took Grant Flower's wicket 10 times plus many other Zim batsman, you are telling me he deserves 0 credit for this?

The two analysis we have seen, which take into account the QUALITY of wickets taken (so it has factored in those minnow wickets), show quite clearly that Murai is higher than Warne. Similarly with the ICC Bowling Rankings, quality of wickets, opposition, runs in the match are again taken into account, and Murali's peak is higer than Warne, and he has spent much longer over the 900 points rating than Warne.

So when we take a look at the basic stats Murali is ahead, when we look in depth at value of wickets taken (something always held against Murali) Murali is ahead again.

 

[Cricketismylife]

De Silva debuted in 1984 when SL were a real minnow side and hardly got any opportunities. I feel as if he had more opportunities his stats would look a bit better, but then he did miss the flat pitch era so that could explain it.

It does annoy me when class players like De Silva, Mark Waugh, Gooch, Ritchie Richardson and many others look inferior statsitically to many of the current players, simply because the standard of bowling has fallen away.

 

[Lostman]

Without B/Z
Warne: avg. 25.40 sr. 57.6
Murali: avg. 24.87 sr. 58.6

If you keep insisting taking away B/Z for Murali, you might as well take out England for Warne.
Thats how much sense this makes.
On top of that its an even bigger joke to disregard all Zim stats even<2004.
Zim had beaten both England and India in the 90's.

 

[Ikki]

Cricketismylife

Not sure what your point is. Warne got ~5% more tailenders than Murali and the team dynamics I mentioned will mean in terms of 8ankitj's analysis he'll lose out on the chance to take top order wickets. If anything, my point shows why it was easier for Murali to have a better proportion of top-order wickets - he gets to face more of them with less competition interfering with his hauls.

Re Zim/Bang; they practically are worthless for comparing the two. They were the two clear weakest sides where Murali played them a lot and Warne hardly any. They are at such a low level that they will skew the stats. The fact that his figures suffer so much shows how much he benefits from having a big proportion of wickets from them, yet that part says little about him as a bowler. He's an all-time great who got to face the two weakest sides of his era an inordinate amount of times.

TBF, JBH is right. We are rehashing points that have already been discussed. Read this through this thread. It's unlikely to change your stance but it's a good read anyway.

 

[akilana]

Re Zim/Bang; they practically are worthless for comparing the two.

It's not more worthless than comparing Murali vs Australia in SL and Warne vs SL in SL and arguing(assuming) Warne would have done better in SL against other teams.

What's worthless for me is using England and SA to compare the two.

 

[Athlai]

You surely can't discount the 14 Tests Ponting play in India. That is huge.

 

[akilana]

Honestly, if you can't see how his 1 bad record in India devalues his overall away record then it's pointless to argue. You have to have a modicum of sense for us to debate.

Murali's record in Australia devalues his overall(away) record but I don't know if you'd admit that. Ponting has no excuse, IMO. Murali was under tremendous pressure from the time he was called for throwing, especially more in Australia as he received special treatment from some fans and the president.

 

[Cricketismylife]

Murali's Zimbabwe wickets

Grant Flower 10 times
Craig Wishart 6 times
Andy Flower 5 times
Paul Strang 5 times
Gavin Rennie 5 times
Guy Whittall 4 times
Andy Whittall 4 times
Trevor Gripper 4 times
Heath Streak 4 times
Alistair Campbell 3 times
Henry Olonga 3 times
Mluki Nkala 3 times
Douglas Hondo 3 times
Douglas Marillier 3 times
Hamilton Masakadza 2 times
Murray Goodwin 2 times
Tatenda Taibu 2 times
Mark Dekker 2 times
Stuart Carlisle 2 times
Bryan Strang 2 times
Gary Brent 2 times
Travis Friend 2 times
A Maregwede 2 times
Brendan Taylor 1 time
Everton Matambanadzo 1 time
Adam Huckle 1 time
Prosper Utseya 1 time
Blessing Mahwire 1 time
Elton Chigumbura 1 time
Pommie Mbwanga 1 time

I have highlighted those batsman supposed to be top order batsman. Admittedly a lot of them have poor averages in the 20s except for Murray Goodwin and Andy Flower.

My main point of doing this was to highlight what a travesty it is to completely remove these efforts of Murali and view them as worthless. We can reduce the value of the wickets, which is exactly what has happened in the How valuable is that wicket thread and the standardisation done by PEWS. That is the only fair way to look at Murali's record, not just subtract them from his total.

 

[GotSpin]

Murali's record in Australia devalues his overall(away) record but I don't know if you'd admit that. Ponting has no excuse, IMO. Murali was under tremendous pressure from the time he was called for throwing, especially more in Australia as he received special treatment from some fans and the president.

Clearly missing the point. Why would you ignore his record in Australia?

Ikki's argument for the removal of BG/Zim is because they were far and away the weakest test teams and Murali played them a lot, skewing his overall average and strike rate heavily in his favour, an opportunity Warne himself did not get.

I personally wouldn't completely remove them, but ZIM/BG do make a significant difference in the debate between the two players

btw. we have a PM not president

 

[smash84]

De Silva debuted in 1984 when SL were a real minnow side and hardly got any opportunities. I feel as if he had more opportunities his stats would look a bit better, but then he did miss the flat pitch era so that could explain it.

It does annoy me when class players like De Silva, Mark Waugh, Gooch, Ritchie Richardson and many others look inferior statsitically to many of the current players, simply because the standard of bowling has fallen away.

So true. The bowling standards have really seemed to have gone down. And the 2 who were showing real potential (the 2 As) turned out to be fixers. Quite annoying really.

 

[smash84]

From what I gather from this video however, Lara has lot of respect for Warne's fighting spirit but doesn't consider him the most skilled. So it's rather odd that he said that Warne was the 'greatest bowler to ever pick the ball'. Was he just saying that because he was being pushed to? Like any visiting cricketer in India gets pushed to say that Tendulkar is the greatest batsman to ever live?

A good question indeed.

 

[Sanz]

Clearly missing the point. Why would you ignore his record in Australia?

Ikki's argument for the removal of BG/Zim is because they were far and away the weakest test teams and Murali played them a lot, skewing his overall average and strike rate heavily in his favour, an opportunity Warne himself did not get.

I personally wouldn't completely remove them, but ZIM/BG do make a significant difference in the debate between the two players

btw. we have a PM not president

I don't know if anyone answered this. but what was Warne's average against them ?

Yes they do make a difference but only in case of Murali. Warne's performance against them does not indicate that his average would have been much better than his current average. Even if he played all of his career games against them, his would still not be better than Murali's current average.

 

[Sanz]

btw. we have a PM not president

The point still stands, does it not ?

 

[Sanz]

Ikki you have just said it...

For one, Warne had competition for upper order wickets. This means in many matches through no fault of his own the batsmen with the higher averages would be taken out by teammates. And if Warne has conceded runs to said batsmen and then takes a batsman with a lower average it hurts him. Something which is far less likely to occur for Murali who also tended to be brought on earlier.

Competion or not, Statistically, Warne is the one who has benefitted from the Presence of some great fast bowlers in his team. Warne's average goes down to 26.83 in the matches without Mcgrath. Goes down to 28.70 in matches without Mcgrath/Gillespie.

In other words, when Warne didn't have competition from Mcgrath/Gillespies, he does worse. His average and strike rate both are worse.

But I am sure we will hear excuses after excuses and another set of twisting tales of statistical manipulations to prove all that wrong.

 

[TumTum]

Competion or not, Statistically, Warne is the one who has benefitted from the Presence of some great fast bowlers in his team. Warne's average goes down to 26.83 in the matches without Mcgrath. Goes down to 28.70 in matches without Mcgrath/Gillespie.

In other words, when Warne didn't have competition from Mcgrath/Gillespies, he does worse. His average and strike rate both are worse.

But I am sure we will hear excuses after excuses and another set of twisting tales of statistical manipulations to prove all that wrong.

McGrath and Gillespie? Talk about statistical manipulations...

 

[Altaican]

IIRC it was during the Ashes whitewash which was Warne's last series. Lara laid on the tributes thick and fast.

From the video it doesn't appear to me that Lara was rating Warne above Murali (or vice-versa). It seems as if he was comparing different attributes of the 2 greatest spinners in the history of the game. I don't recall Lara going out of his way on his own to rate Warne (or Murali) as a phenomenon in sheer awe. It would be hard to miss that. For example: Warne was clearly in awe of Sachin after the 98 series. Imran (and Lillee) were clearly in awe of Michael Holding's bowling. Even during the heyday of Tendulkar, Lara et al, I recall both Wasim and Waqar rating Martin Crowe as the best batsman they bowled to. Both of them repeated their admiration and awe of Crowe's batting skills a number of times (Waqar said it even when he was questioned immediately after Lara's record-breaking 375). Inzi has the same opinion on Crowe too, and rates him along with Ponting as the best batsmen he had played against. Similarly Indian batsman Vengsarkar talked about Viv Richards in total awe in an interview that had nothing to do with Viv or West Indies.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

He's saying Murali was harder to face initially but Warne was harder to feel comfortable against. There's no reason to read any further into it than that, really.

 

[smash84]

From the video it doesn't appear to me that Lara was rating Warne above Murali (or vice-versa). It seems as if he was comparing different attributes of the 2 greatest spinners in the history of the game. I don't recall Lara going out of his way on his own to rate Warne (or Murali) as a phenomenon in sheer awe. It would be hard to miss that. For example: Warne was clearly in awe of Sachin after the 98 series. Imran (and Lillee) were clearly in awe of Michael Holding's bowling. Even during the heyday of Tendulkar, Lara et al, I recall both Wasim and Waqar rating Martin Crowe as the best batsman they bowled to. Both of them repeated their admiration and awe of Crowe's batting skills a number of times (Waqar said it even when he was questioned immediately after Lara's record-breaking 375). Inzi has the same opinion on Crowe too, and rates him along with Ponting as the best batsmen he had played against. Similarly Indian batsman Vengsarkar talked about Viv Richards in total awe in an interview that had nothing to do with Viv or West Indies.

Waqar and Wasim didn't bowl too much against Sachin in their heydays which is also why they might not rate Sachin as highly. They just didn't play a lot of cricket against him when Sachin was at his peak and they were at theirs.

Also I recall Wasim mentioning Martin Crowe as really tough to bowl to. In fact he says it in his autobiography too but I don't recall that about Waqar. Waqar usually had a fantastic time against NZ.

 

[Sanz]

It seems only person that can understand proper English and write it too is the guy above the poster above me.