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CW decides the greatest test spinner ever. 43 names: Countdown/Rankings thread
- Thread starter mr_mister
- Start date
Starfighter
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
One third of a good guess.
mr_mister
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
#3rd. Muttiah Muralitharan, 612 points
Featured on 33 of 35 lists
Highest finish: 1st (16 times)
Ranking within spin discipline: 1st of 13 (Right Arm Offbreak)
Test WPM ranking: 1st of 43 (6.02)
Murali finishes as the best non-australian spinner and the best off-spinner, to no big shock. He can only claim 3rd overall though, which will annoy some people I'm sure. I've seen a lot of debate in this thread about firstly his action and secondly the dubious act of people leaving him off their lists. There was a large amount of points between 4th and 3rd, the biggest gap of the whole list actually of 93. There is less than half of that separating 3rd from 1st. So it's a tight finish. Murali finished at the top of more people's lists than anyone else, coming 1st 16 times. But completely missing out on 2 lists has cost him a top 2 finish.
Depending on who you ask Murali's bowling was either a thing of beauty or an abomination. His extremely loose wrists allowed him to work magic with the ball, making him able to extract huge turn from his off break. Also it allowed him to bowl his doosra, the off-spinning equivalent of a wrong'un/googly. The fact he used his wrists and not his fingers like most other offies allowed his doosra to become all but unplayable in the right conditions. It was his doosra that eventually resulted in a change of cricket laws to allow him to bowl legally. This was in 2004, the third time his action had come heavily under the microscope and required extensive testing.
Famously being no-balled for throwing by umpires Hair and Emerson in Australia in the 90s has made Murali a pretty famous figure down under. Calls of no-ball as he ran into bowl from the crowd were common. Let's break down what the official verdict of his action is. He is said to posses a congenital defect in his arm which leaves it permanently bent and unable to fully straighten. This combined with his pronounced shoulder joint rotation and strange wrist movement give an illusion of a wonky throwing style of bowling. But his arm doesn't straighten back up from its bent position which is the sign of a throw. Despite this his elbow extension was still deemed to exceed the allowable degrees for spinners, but further study revealed nearly all bowlers had technically illegal actions under the current laws and so they were changed to allow more degrees of extension. Or something like that. I've said enough about this issue and will now move on.
Murali's stats are mind boggling. 800 wickets from his 133 tests is the world record for any bowler. The fact he took them at over 6 per test is second only to Barnes I believe. Certainly Sri Lanka having such weak bowlers other than Murali, Vaas and Herath over their history allowed him to take so many wickets per match and wickets in general I suppose. But that's not a slight against him, the wickets he took weren't handed to him. 67 five fers from 133 tests is, like Grimmet's rate was, Bradmanesque. It's so far ahead of the nearest competitor it isn't funny. I don't think this record in particular will be topped, as you'll never again have a team playing so many tests with only one bowler taking all the wickets.
He took 9 wickets in a test innings twice, in 1998 and 2002. In that '98 match he took 16 total, the 5th best all-time figures. It was in a one-off test against England, back when Sri Lanka were only deemed worthy of 1 off tests. And he bowled his side to a famous victory like he would do many more times in years to come. In 2002, relatively early in his career, Wisden deemed him to be statistically the best test bowler of all time. His test career spanned 18 years and basically 3 generations of cricket. His career saw huge changes in how cricket was played. He played tests against both Allan Border and Shakib Al-Hasan, to put it in some perspective.
He took nearly 500 wickets in his native Sri Lanka at 19.5. He was extremely successful in other parts of the world, averaging 27.7 overall away. India and Australia were the only countries he averaged higher than 27 in and did so by some margin, being 45 in India and 72 in Australia(though from only 5 tests). This was against one of the best spin playing batting sides in India and in one of the hardest places to bowl spin in Australia. Still, it is worth nothing as hardly any bowlers seem to have a perfect record. His overall average was 22.7 and his S/R 55. His best year came in 2006 when he was a veteran. In it he took 90 wickets at 17 from 11 tests. Remarkable.
Featured on 33 of 35 lists
Highest finish: 1st (16 times)
Ranking within spin discipline: 1st of 13 (Right Arm Offbreak)
Test WPM ranking: 1st of 43 (6.02)
Murali finishes as the best non-australian spinner and the best off-spinner, to no big shock. He can only claim 3rd overall though, which will annoy some people I'm sure. I've seen a lot of debate in this thread about firstly his action and secondly the dubious act of people leaving him off their lists. There was a large amount of points between 4th and 3rd, the biggest gap of the whole list actually of 93. There is less than half of that separating 3rd from 1st. So it's a tight finish. Murali finished at the top of more people's lists than anyone else, coming 1st 16 times. But completely missing out on 2 lists has cost him a top 2 finish.
Depending on who you ask Murali's bowling was either a thing of beauty or an abomination. His extremely loose wrists allowed him to work magic with the ball, making him able to extract huge turn from his off break. Also it allowed him to bowl his doosra, the off-spinning equivalent of a wrong'un/googly. The fact he used his wrists and not his fingers like most other offies allowed his doosra to become all but unplayable in the right conditions. It was his doosra that eventually resulted in a change of cricket laws to allow him to bowl legally. This was in 2004, the third time his action had come heavily under the microscope and required extensive testing.
Famously being no-balled for throwing by umpires Hair and Emerson in Australia in the 90s has made Murali a pretty famous figure down under. Calls of no-ball as he ran into bowl from the crowd were common. Let's break down what the official verdict of his action is. He is said to posses a congenital defect in his arm which leaves it permanently bent and unable to fully straighten. This combined with his pronounced shoulder joint rotation and strange wrist movement give an illusion of a wonky throwing style of bowling. But his arm doesn't straighten back up from its bent position which is the sign of a throw. Despite this his elbow extension was still deemed to exceed the allowable degrees for spinners, but further study revealed nearly all bowlers had technically illegal actions under the current laws and so they were changed to allow more degrees of extension. Or something like that. I've said enough about this issue and will now move on.
Murali's stats are mind boggling. 800 wickets from his 133 tests is the world record for any bowler. The fact he took them at over 6 per test is second only to Barnes I believe. Certainly Sri Lanka having such weak bowlers other than Murali, Vaas and Herath over their history allowed him to take so many wickets per match and wickets in general I suppose. But that's not a slight against him, the wickets he took weren't handed to him. 67 five fers from 133 tests is, like Grimmet's rate was, Bradmanesque. It's so far ahead of the nearest competitor it isn't funny. I don't think this record in particular will be topped, as you'll never again have a team playing so many tests with only one bowler taking all the wickets.
He took 9 wickets in a test innings twice, in 1998 and 2002. In that '98 match he took 16 total, the 5th best all-time figures. It was in a one-off test against England, back when Sri Lanka were only deemed worthy of 1 off tests. And he bowled his side to a famous victory like he would do many more times in years to come. In 2002, relatively early in his career, Wisden deemed him to be statistically the best test bowler of all time. His test career spanned 18 years and basically 3 generations of cricket. His career saw huge changes in how cricket was played. He played tests against both Allan Border and Shakib Al-Hasan, to put it in some perspective.
He took nearly 500 wickets in his native Sri Lanka at 19.5. He was extremely successful in other parts of the world, averaging 27.7 overall away. India and Australia were the only countries he averaged higher than 27 in and did so by some margin, being 45 in India and 72 in Australia(though from only 5 tests). This was against one of the best spin playing batting sides in India and in one of the hardest places to bowl spin in Australia. Still, it is worth nothing as hardly any bowlers seem to have a perfect record. His overall average was 22.7 and his S/R 55. His best year came in 2006 when he was a veteran. In it he took 90 wickets at 17 from 11 tests. Remarkable.
Last edited:
Starfighter
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
O
M
G
I honestly expected him to come first.
M
G
I honestly expected him to come first.
OverratedSanity
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Still amazes me how Murali retired. He'd voiced his goal of 800 wickets years before and on 792, announces he'd only play one more. And promptly picks up 8 to get there. What a badass.
ankitj
Hall of Fame Member
That was one game I was cheering for opposition.
TheJediBrah
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Yeah I'm surprised too. Kind of an anticlimax as it would have been more interesting if 1 v 2 was Murali v Warne/O'Reilly.
I guess those few people leaving him off their lists really affected the result
Surprised that no one has yet used the one word that best describes his action - ' diabolical ' ( thanks Bishen), which though is not necessarily the same as ' illegal '
I was a long-time supporter of Murali, but changed my mind once he disregarded his Boards advice to dispense with the doosra since it exacerbates his dodgy deliveries.
I change my mind once again - but for him, the cricket world would not have had such a boost in their banterings (akin to Bodyline)
I was a long-time supporter of Murali, but changed my mind once he disregarded his Boards advice to dispense with the doosra since it exacerbates his dodgy deliveries.
I change my mind once again - but for him, the cricket world would not have had such a boost in their banterings (akin to Bodyline)