Hick was an utter waste of space in Test cricket. As per ODI cricket goes - his stats and Aravinda's stats are comparable, bar for the fact that Aravinda played more than 2x as much.greg said:
Well the whole debate was about ODIs, wasn't it?C_C said:
1. He may have a miserable record in India, but regardless all the accolades that Ponting gets its rightly deserved he is by no means over-rated.tooextracool said:
well the simple reason why Murali has a better record againts top order batsmen is because he is the only great bowler in his side & he is forced to take those wickets thus he will have a better record, the fact that when Warne didn't have Pigeon & did it TWICE is enough to say that he too could have done it.C_C said:
That's a flawed argument.aussie said:
He averages 20.45 there from 9 matches.Maison said:
There's much more to the argument, but I don't want to spark another debate.Top_Cat said:
You are correct in saying that leg-spin is harder to master, and consequently it is harder to become a good legspinner than to become a good off-spinner. Unsurprisingly you see more county/state standard offspinners than legspinners. But it is not easier to become a world-class offspinner than it is to become a world-class legspinner, it takes just as much skill and hard work to be truely great at both. If your average Joe found it easier to become a great offspinner than to become a great legspinner, one cannot deny that there would have been more great offspinners in the past than great legspinners. In reality by my judgement there have been three of both. Off spin - Laker, Gibbs, Muralitharan. Leg spin - Grimmett, O'Reilly, Warne. Plus Ramadhin who bowled both varieties. It cannot be easier to become a legend at the off variety or we would have seen more of them.howardj said:
Absolute garbage. Murali is bound to take more wickets per match and collect more 5wis and 10wms than Warne because he is the only great bowler in his side, but regarding the other criteria relevant to 'having a better record' your argument falls flat. When analysing who has the better record, average, strike rate and economy rate must also be taken into account, and playing in a good side is certainly helpful for at least two of these. If Warne was of equal ability to Murali he would take less wickets per match than Murali (because Australia have four comparatively good bowlers competing for wickets), but would have a lower average and strike rate (because greater pressure is exerted on the batsman by bowlers at the other end). For an example of this take two great fast bowlers, Marshall and Hadlee - Marshall having a better average because the high class West Indian bowlers put greater pressure on the batsmen, but Hadlee took more wickets per match because there was less competition for them. Same with Lindwall vs Bedser, Ambrose vs Akram, Laker vs Tayfield, and many, many others. Murali takes more wickets per match and has a lower average and strike rate.aussie said:
However, a statistical glance at his record against some of the world's best batsmen shows that he has had ample chance to prove himself against them and failed.marc71178 said:
The only times he has played the Indians has been affected by injuries (shoulder in 98, broken finger 2001). Kallis has never looked safe against Warne, so once again stats don't tell the full story there. I've never seen him bowling to Smith. Flintoff, Warne was at his best, and Flintoff played him very well indeed, but that can't be said for most English batsmen - Flintoff's average against Warne was lower than it was over the whole series though (although incredibly marginally).a massive zebra said:
Warne has gone at exactly 3 an over for the last 5 years (in which he has played no less than 48 matches). I agree that he is a much more accurate and reliable bowler than MacGill, but that is not exactly hard and his economy over the last half dozen years or so (a very considerable stretch of time) is hardly something to write home about.Tom Halsey said:
Which thread was that?Tom Halsey said:
