Who is the best leg spinner after Warne?

[harsh.ag]

Tahir. Tough given that all the leading spinners are finger-spinners.

Give me Mishra any day.

 

[Prince EWS]

Warne is the greatest leg spinner ever.Even if you wear the most biased of glasses,no one can argue against Warne being the best leg spinner the game has ever seen.

I legitimately think it's extremely close between he and O'Reilly for #1.

 

[Beleg]

kumble is easily the best i've ever seen and his longevity and resilience should definitely count in his favour.


edit: i have to say i am a bit amazed by some of the posts here. o'reilly seems to have been extremely successful and his contemporaries appeared to have raved about him with some abandon but we are measuring up a fella with 150 odd wickets against someone with 600+ wickets at an extremely decent average. i am sure one can make a good case for the likes of o'reilly and macgill (in particular) but to not even take kumble into reckoning?

it just reeks of rose-tinted glasses to me.

 

[fredfertang]

Tich Freeman deserves a shout, at least as the best English leggie, which will get him close to the top 10 overall

 

[OverratedSanity]

Kumble better than MacGill for me

Loved watching MacGill bowl but he just bowled way too many long hops in between those beautiful leg breaks.

 

[ohnoitsyou]

Imo Warne is only rated as highly as he is because he revitalised the extinct art of legspin and his persona plays a big part as well.

Even though O'Reilly only played 27 tests, these were over 15 years in very batting friendly conditions, so it would be a bit foolish not to rate him in the same league as Warne, simply because he played less matches and hence took less wickets.

And as much as I hate to say it, because i really rate the guy, kumble was a home track bully

 

[watson]

Tich Freeman deserves a shout, at least as the best English leggie, which will get him close to the top 10 overall

In his book '10 for 66 and All That' (page 110) Arthur Mailey rated Freeman very highly, but only in English conditions, particularly County cricket. Apparently the Australian batsman targeted his bowling and he struggled during his 1924/25 tour of Australia.

 

[Beleg]

Imo Warne is only rated as highly as he is because he revitalised the extinct art of legspin and his persona plays a big part as well.

Even though O'Reilly only played 27 tests, these were over 15 years in very batting friendly conditions, so it would be a bit foolish not to rate him in the same league as Warne, simply because he played less matches and hence took less wickets.

And as much as I hate to say it, because i really rate the guy, kumble was a home track bully

i grew up in pakistan in the 90s and the art of leg-spin was very much alive with both abdul qadir and mushtaq ahmed being household names. so perhaps he revitalised the "extinct" art of leg-spin in the antipods (i thought the assertion had more to do with its value as a soundbite than with reality) but it certainly was not the case globally. his persona did not really register in the same manner either since its pretty steeped within the sort of cultural sensibilities that are, or were, alien to the masses. we did rate him though because he almost inevitably performed well whenever he played against pakistan. i remember thinking he had a sort of unassuming air that contrasted with kumble's intense, focused hostility.

 

[karan316]

Anil Kumble

 

[harsh.ag]

Tich Freeman deserves a shout, at least as the best English leggie, which will get him close to the top 10 overall

Yup. Freeman is certainly the first successful leggie, it can be said, if we don't count Barnes, as we tend not to here.

kumble is easily the best i've ever seen and his longevity and resilience should definitely count in his favour.


edit: i have to say i am a bit amazed by some of the posts here. o'reilly seems to have been extremely successful and his contemporaries appeared to have raved about him with some abandon but we are measuring up a fella with 150 odd wickets against someone with 600+ wickets at an extremely decent average. i am sure one can make a good case for the likes of o'reilly and macgill (in particular) but to not even take kumble into reckoning?

it just reeks of rose-tinted glasses to me.

I have Kumble at 3 behind Warne and O'Reilly who I think wrestle for the 1st position. Everyone from that era including Bradman and Hammond raved and raved about O'Reilly. Plus his FC record is fantastic.

Imo Warne is only rated as highly as he is because he revitalised the extinct art of legspin and his persona plays a big part as well.

Even though O'Reilly only played 27 tests, these were over 15 years in very batting friendly conditions, so it would be a bit foolish not to rate him in the same league as Warne, simply because he played less matches and hence took less wickets.

And as much as I hate to say it, because i really rate the guy, kumble was a home track bully

For the last time, Warne DID NOT revitalise leg spin, and leg spin was certainly NOT an extinct art. Put down Haigh and pick up Guha to get this. Or just take a random look at India and Pakistan in the 80s and 90s.

 

[watson]

The following is from an old post of mine...............


It is not much of an exaggeration to state that Bill O’Reilly was to Australia’s bowling in the 1930s what Don Bradman was to its batting.

Consider the facts - during a decade of sustained run making the Australian bowlers took 355 English wickets. Out of those 355 wickets Bill O’Reilly took 102 of them. This represents an astounding 28% of the total, or in round terms more than a quarter.

What’s more, O’Reilly was the only bowler, apart from Bert Ironmonger, who averaged under 30 runs per wicket. However, Bert Ironmonger played only 4 Test matches, and so his impact was minimal in comparison. Not even O’Reilly’s bowling partner Grimmett came close to matching O’Reilly during the 1930s. Here is a breakdown of Australia’s main bowlers for the decade;

Bill O’Reilly
Wickets = 102
Ave = 25.36
SR = 77.0

Clarrie Grimmett
Wickets = 59
Ave = 32.52
SR = 90.8

Tim Wall
Wickets = 35
Ave = 42.11
SR = 98.00

Chuck Fleetwood-Smith
Wickets = 33
Ave = 36.06
SR = 71.4

Ernie McCormick
Wickets = 21
Ave = 31.47
SR = 64.5

Stan McCabe
Wickets = 21
Ave = 51.23
SR = 123.00

Bert Ironmonger
Wickets = 14
Ave = 27.00
SR = 98.00


Therefore, it is hardly surprising that Don Bradman wrote in 1992;

Although only slow medium, his bowling was accurately described by Hassett as “savage aggression”. Attack was his creed and there was never any respite from his relentless accuracy. Without doubt, he was the best bowler I ever faced or saw.

Cited in ‘The 100 Greatest Crciketers’ by Geoff Armstrong

In 1938 Bradman discussed the bowling styles of O’Reilly and Sydney Barnes with the author Neville Cardus, and stated;

I never saw Barnes, so I could not speak of how he bowled the leg-spinner. I only know that O’Reilly bowls it as well as I can imagine anyone bowling it. It couldn’t possibly be nastier.

Cited in ‘Bradman’s Best Ashes Teams’ by Roland Perry

Walter Hammond appears to agree with Lindsay Hassett’s and Bradman’s summations in his own description of O’Reilly’s bowling;

O’Reilly makes the ball jump up off the pitch better than any slow bowler I have met in my long career. He also has a shattering loud ‘appeal’; it has once or twice almost made me jump out of my skin when I was absorbed in thinking about my batting. He told me once that in his first Test, he failed to appeal for an LBW, and the umpire took him aside afterwards and told him what he had missed! He never failed to appeal again, and always, in his strident voice, you could hear the agony of that rememberence!

‘The Tiger’, as they called him Australia, took a long run to the wicket, and it was rather uncanny at first to watch this 6-ft 3-in athlete gallop to the wicket, snarling with all his teeth, whirl his long and powerful arms – and produce a slow ball that only ‘fired’ when it left the pitch. The mountain laboured and bought forth a mouse – but the mouse tweaked under the bat and knocked down the wicket!

‘Cricket My World’

In his entire career Bill O’Reilly played 27 Test matches and took 144 wickets at 22.60. His Strike Rate was 69.61. However, whether these numbers are impressive or not misses the point. Bill O’Reilly dominated the Australian bowling attack for the best part of a decade, and stood unchallenged as Australia’s best and greatest bowler in the mind of the Australian public for nearly 35 years until Dennis Lillee and then Shane Warne came along. As a spin bowling icon he is an absolute must for this Ashes team.


http://www.cricketweb.net/forum/cri...l-time-great-ashes-contest-7.html#post3144016

 

[The Battlers Prince]

Imo Warne is only rated as highly as he is because he revitalised the extinct art of legspin and his persona plays a big part as well.

Even though O'Reilly only played 27 tests, these were over 15 years in very batting friendly conditions, so it would be a bit foolish not to rate him in the same league as Warne, simply because he played less matches and hence took less wickets.

And as much as I hate to say it, because i really rate the guy, kumble was a home track bully

I'm not sure the uncovered pitches were all that batter friendly? Some were some weren't. I think that O'Reilly must have been extremely accurate and to that end an excellent bowler. But one of the drawbacks of trying to go between eras is conditions and because of that I think I'd give the edge to Kumble.

 

[benchmark00]

Thread ruined at the first serious mention of Anil Kumble.

 

[harsh.ag]

Doesn't have enough Sydney Barnes for me.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Thread ruined at the first serious mention of Anil Kumble.

Nah, was already ruined when MacGill was mentioned in the first page

 

[benchmark00]

A comeback as Kumble like as the man's bowling - unimpressive. Would have been identical only if you took up 4 pages of text just to deliver that one line.

 

[Prince EWS]

Nah, was already ruined when MacGill was mentioned in the first page

Kumble was mentioned in the OP tbh.

 

[harsh.ag]

Non-impressive much?

Anil Kumble Bowls With A Broken Jaw Against West Indies

 

[The Battlers Prince]

A guy taking over 600 wickets at under 30 and a seriously lesser bowler than Warne says a lot too.
I can understand the MacGill suggestions about being number 2 leggy. I felt he out bowled Warne a couple times, more than just statistically, which is a very good achievement in my books.

 

[Coronis]

A guy taking over 600 wickets at under 30 and a seriously lesser bowler than Warne says a lot too.
I can understand the MacGill suggestions about being number 2 leggy. I felt he out bowled Warne a couple times, more than just statistically, which is a very good achievement in my books.

I know you said more than just statistically, but I couldn't resist. Bowling records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo