Slifer
International Captain
Bro the entirety of thos post and stuff about spinners is baseless. WI in the 70s, when the dynasty began, came up against the likes of Chandra, Prassana and Bedi; still won in India. Against England they faced Underwood still beat England. Wi beat Pakistan away in 1980. The solitary test they won to take the series they faced Qadir and Qasim.WI toured SL for the first time in 1993. Other than for Lara and Hooper, even the greats like Haynes and Richardson found batting against a young Muralitharan very tough (even Lara did not sort him out in that test). Simmons, Arthurton et al were sitting ducks. West Indies even at their peak would have got devastated by yop class spin bowler like Murali or Warne. Only time they encountered something close to that was Chandrashekar and Qadir. Chandra was at the end of his career and Qadir was not good enough. Still they managed to create massive dents,.
80s simple did not have good spinners. 90s produced Kumble, Warne, Murali, Mushtaq, Saqlain and Vettori. These guys debuting 10 years earlier would have changed the balance of cricket significantly. (Ex. SL would have been out of minnowhood pretty early, NZ with Hadlee and Vettori would have given WI a run for their money, Pakistan Saqlain instead of Qadir (or playing both) would have demolished West Indies few more times than they did, and India with peak Kapil and Kumble would have been on a different level)
Warne was a atg bowler but he never was the difference maker vs the weaker WI teams (specifically the 90s) he faced, McGrath and Waugh were. Don't know how you expect him to have an even bigger impact vs a much stronger batting lineup ie those of the late 70s early 80s.
I'm not even going to comment on the Vettori, kumble stuff...smh. I don't see how any addition of spinners Murali or whoever would've stopped SL from still being demolished. News flash, no way their 80s batting lineup withstand the WI home and sure as hell not in the WI.
The blips WI had vs hirwani, qadir etc in the 80s are overstated and really need to be put into perspective. The Australian losses came in 4th or 5th tests after WI were already 3-0 up. Hirwanni won a test on a genuine dustbowl akin to pitch from the last test of the India/Australia series in 2004. Wi would've still won the series had I believe either the first or second test not been rained out.