Did Marshall and McGrath have it easier?

[Migara]

And what's the origin or source of Murali's greatness. His greatest claim to be the greatest. 800 wickets.

Nah, he could still be a 22.5 averaging spinner without any support, the level of fitness, and the tactical geniusness where he could hold and attack at the same time are the reasons he is a legend. 800 comes somewhere down point 4 or 5. Shane FFS was only 92 short.

And no, don't think we can definitively say what his average would have been, but for sure we can say that the number would have been less.

We can say with a good probability it would. The number of wickets wouldn't have mattered much because SL only managed to take 60% of opposition wickets during Murali's time. In fact there was a study looking in to the issue and it showed Murali's stats improving significantly when the support cast improved.

And despite the negative of only having Vaas as great support, he did have better home conditions that probably anyone. He sure as hell had better home conditions than Marshall and McGrath.

Once again you have to decide between whether Murali had better conditions or Sanga had better conditions. Sri Lankan pitches become Schrodinger's cat when discussing Murali and Sangakkara. If pitches were dustbowls aiding Murali, then Sanga is easily a better batsman than Lara or Richards, because he played on worst home conditions for a batsman. So pick your side.

 

[kyear2]

Nah, he could still be a 22.5 averaging spinner without any support, the level of fitness, and the tactical geniusness where he could hold and attack at the same time are the reasons he is a legend. 800 comes somewhere down point 4 or 5. Shane FFS was only 92 short.

We can say with a good probability it would. The number of wickets wouldn't have mattered much because SL only managed to take 60% of opposition wickets during Murali's time. In fact there was a study looking in to the issue and it showed Murali's stats improving significantly when the support cast improved.

Once again you have to decide between whether Murali had better conditions or Sanga had better conditions. Sri Lankan pitches become Schrodinger's cat when discussing Murali and Sangakkara. If pitches were dustbowls aiding Murali, then Sanga is easily a better batsman than Lara or Richards, because he played on worst home conditions for a batsman. So pick your side.

Before I start with the highlighted point. With regards to better support, all I'm saying is that there's no guarantee either way. But he's sure as hell not hitting that wpm or overall today with high level support. He also was pretty decently aided by having more minnows than the average ATG. That didn't hurt.

With regards to this point that you keep throwing out. The pitches were spin friendly as hell, I don't think that you would dispute that. I don't think anyone would dispute that.
When touring teams showed up to SL, who besides Australia had a spinner even close to the class of Murali to explain such conditions? When you out pacers on those wickets, it is dead as hell. There's no support for them, and yes, for Sanga, the pitch wouldn't have offered up the demons that existed in SA for example, or the swing that existed in England etc etc.

This is not hard.

Murali had ideal home conditions, how much did that make up for lesser support, no one can ever know, but I'm sure it helped.

Again, it balances out.

 

[thierry henry]

The OP was asserting that teams like NZ have weaker batting units and therefore more regular pressure on bowlers like Hadlee compared with Marshall and McGrath who had the luxury of consistent high first innings totals giving them a cushion and scoreboard pressure.

Do you agree with that?

I have no idea. I was just saying using Hadlee's NZ as a sort of contrast to those other teams wasn't ideal because 80s NZ in particular were a decent team. However by the same token, Hadlee's vastly improved performance in a superior team (80s v 70s) could be seen as supporting your point.

 

[Starfighter]

My point is that Marshall and McGrath had the added advantage of more runs to play with and added pressure of massive totals.

And I'm saying none of the stats presented here prove that.