Kumble had a decent record around then but never really announced himself in the way Warne did in 1993.
Murali averaged around 30 up until the late nineties and didn't really burst onto the scene until he cleaned up England.
I've already been over Qadir's mediocrity on here before. He lacked impact outside his home country.
In 1992 the West Indies four pace bowler strategy was still the gold standard. By the end of the decade it was completely outdated. You can argue as to the cause of the change, but it's hard to deny that Warne was the face of it. That no more great spinners were produced in the early-mid 00's then is neither here nor there. Yes there were other spinners, some even did better in at certain times. But none were the personality that Warne was.
I'm not arguing against Warne being better than any other spinner in the 90s. He was streets ahead. I'm saying he didn't influence the development of other great spinners from his era because they were already playing, and that a few years of greatness does not make you one of the top players of the century.
As for changing the game, 4 fast bowlers never became a standard, it had just been slightly less abnormal due to a combination of great fast bowlers, fast pitches, mediocre spinners, and good part timers.
Warne didn't influence how the game was played. He had no impact on how other bowlers bowled- there were plenty of leggies around before and after him, but no one has ever bowled like him. Before and after him, spinners always made the grade if they were expected to be close to as good as the quicks, or people chopped and changed with bits and pieces players/ part-timers when no quality spinners were available (RSA until recently when not playing 4 quicks, WI until they stopped producing good quicks, AUS some of the time between Warne and Lyon, England currently, NZ most of recent history).
Have a look at what was actually going on with team composition since the rise of WI:
Australia- often didn't play a spinner, but had a string of front line batsmen that were probably as good at bowling as specialist spinners. When they were without good part-timers (only Border), they tried mediocre spinners. Fast decks
WI- once in many lifetimes run of quicks, lack of spin options, fast decks. Always had a bit of part-time spin, but barely worth mentioning.
Eng- really not too sure what they were doing from early 80s until early 2000s.
NZ- pretty much always played a spinner in the 80s, chopped and changed 90s pre-vettori- clearly not much impact from either WI 4 quick strategy or Warne.
RSA- not relevant to pre-warne discussion as they joined cricket about the same time as Warne. Chopped and changed a lot with garbage spinners or all seam. 1st time they got a decent spinner (Adams) he became a fixture. Always had fast bowling allrounders, so a spinner has always been in unfulfilled dream and have often gone bits and pieces to compensate.
Zim- same as RSA, but always at least 1 spinner
Pak- Always played spin, despite AtG quicks
India- always spin, only getting a good pace attack together now
Lanka- almost only spin early on, adding more pace over time.
Windies 4 man pace may have had a slight impact on 1 or 2 of these- questionably AUS, I'm not sure about England, not really RSA (apartheid isolation + the fast bowling culture pre-dated WI rise). The rest all always played spin. Which of these teams Warne could have had an impact on in reviving spin, I'm not sure. England maybe? No idea. 1 team (potentially) plus your own is not exactly shaping the face of cricket.
Non-SC teams play in the SC a lot more often these days, and have maybe started to give a little more leeway to mediocre spinners to blood them so they stop getting smashed as badly when they tour, but I'm not sure that is even particularly true. Rules on overrate due to TV has changed too- teams might be willing to get fined by playing without a spinner in a game or 2, but it can't be done too often or you will be getting a player banned every game.
We saw the 1st game I know of that ever contained 10 specialist quicks last month, and one of the teams involved was India.
Warne changed Australia's strategy when he was in the team because he was good enough. And when he wasn't, McGill was. However Australians (and I'm assuming English as well looking at how many votes he got) consider him to have changed cricket, it really was just one exceptional set of bowlers that made people think things had changed at all, when in reality it was business as usual for pretty much everyone else, adjusting available resources to conditions before, during, and after Warne.
