Let's say you have an all time middle order of Tendulkar, Lara and Richards. Two of them have generally belted the two spinners in the side. Neither of them have really belted McGrath, for example. They may have won some battles or lost some, but at worst the all time great pace bowlers are even.
So called "all time great spinners", on the other hand, lose out vs. both. So you tell me who you'd rather have bowling against Tendulkar and Lara: McGrath/Marshall or Warne/Mutalitharan. If you decide the latter, that's fine and that's up to you.
I'd take the former every time. If you're talking about crappy players of spin, its one thing, but they're rare in an all time side. All the players are great players of pace as well, but its very instructive how the best fast bowlers still manage to get the best batsmen, while the best spin bowlers have a tougher time.
Several points to be addressed here:
1) If you're going to be so exact with the hypotheticals, I'd say that the team in question that has Tendulkar and Lara in it is never going to play itself, so it's a moot point. You've cherry picked the very best players of spin in the world. This side is going to play against all sorts of sides, all sorts of players, not merely itself over and over again.
2) My team already has McGrath and Marshall and Hadlee in it. The point is about the fourth/fifth bowler. If the three of the above can't get Sachin out, for example, what are the chances that having Imran in it is going to make a massive difference? He doesn't offer anything significantly different in addition to what I already have. Murali does. That's my point. How many times was SA attack found out to be predictable and one-dimensional in spite of having adequate fast bowlers in the side?
3) Let me give you a different scenario: you have arguably
the best batsman in the world, Ponting, playing a side that has the three abovementioned fast bowlers in it. As a fourth choice, you have to pick either Lillee, let's say, or Harbhajan - who has made Ponting his bunny. Who do you pick? The point is that some of the great batsmen are susceptible to very good spinners too. If there is even one batsman in the side who is susceptible to spin - and every side will have at least one, relatively, no matter how strong the side - then you must pick a spinner because you have already covered the pace option more than adequately. It's important to realise that I'm not in favour of picking 5 spinners in the side - you, however, advocate picking 5 pacemen, so the onus is on you to prove that the one extra paceman counters all of the advantages of the single spinner - his advantages being already covered by the 4 other world-class fast bowlers in the side. It's a much, much stronger statement than mine.
4) There's still the host of other benefits offered by the spinner, in addition to points mentioned above. Getting through overs quickly, forcing the batsmen to generate pace instead of offering it freely (how many times has a great batsman holed out in the deep because of frustration?), being generally more niggardly than the paceman, being able to bowl in tandem with a paceman and making things unpredictable, etc etc. Add to these advantages the fact that Murali and Warne have stats that compare very well with those of the best pacemen, simply as bowlers and ignoring the spin factor, and the case IMO is pretty watertight.
Murali > Lillee in every single department, statistically, except for strike rate which is 54 vs 52. And on top of that, he offers all the above advantages, while Lillee already has 4
other world-class fast bowlers in his team - who if they can't get Sachin and Lara out, need to throw the ball to Murali or Lillee. Who would you pick?
