Shane Warne vs Muralidharan

India
February 20, 2009 5:07am CST
Whom do you consider to be the greatest of spinners? Well for me I think Shane Warne is far far a better bowler than Murali. The reasons for this biasedness even though Murali's records are better than that of Warne's, Warne had to bowl in most of the matches( about 80%) on pitches that had very less assistance for the spinners while for Murali it was totally different. He bowled on spinners' friendly tracks on 70% of the matches. So records are bound to be in his favour. Apart from the that, Australia had a lot of good bowlers who used to start the bowling ahead of Warne and by the time Warne came to attack there would have been very less no. of wickets for him to take. Again this was not the case with Muralidharan as he is the only bowling spearhead for the Sri Lankans and thus had a good chance to pick up as many wickets as possible of the opposition.
3 responses
@amitavroy (4819)
• India
22 Feb 09
shane warne is definitely a better bowler when it comes to contemporary cricketing spinners because what he has achieved is something which is of great quality. We have to understand one of the biggest problems with shame on air is that he never got spinning friendly pitches at home. The Australian grounds are known for pace bowling and n spinner taking wickets on such wickets is definitely are excellent. Moreover in his side you get the legendary fast bowlers of the contemporary cricket who used to take a lot of wickets so by the time she in wanting to bode a lot of wickets are already gone. And even after that condition he took so many wickets which is a great achievement. On the other hand if you compare with murali, he is like a sole competitor in his side. Every match he would board more than 50 to 60 overs in an innings and to get a lot of wickets after bowling so many overs is not a great deal. Definitely he's a good bowler but he got more chances than shane warne and so he got a lot of wickets but still he is not that effective on wickets that does not help spin bowling whereas shane warne was equally deadly on every page except for India where he was always hammered because we have a history of playing spinners very well. He was the man of the match in a World Cup which is never the case with any spinner or for that matter of fact no bowler got a man of the match in the World Cup before him. That itself speaks about his level of performance. And also about his class.
@jaffna (778)
• India
21 Feb 09
I always adore both of them.i like both of the players very much.But i would agree that shane warne is the best bowler of all times.Although,murali is the leading wicket taker now ,i still feel that shane is the best.He has got much stuff and very good experience for so many years and has got different bowling ways of attacking batsmen.A not interested in murali's "doosra" kind of bowlng as it has created much of criticism in the cricket world.anyway am a great fan of both the players
@abhi_bangal (3686)
• India
20 Feb 09
Yes. You are right. These two will always remain the kings of spin. But I think, it will be Shane Warne. Because he has the ability to turn the ball almost anywhere and everywhere. I don't mean to say that Murali can't. But they say that he has something of a 'faulty' wrist since his birth - which makes him 'turn' the ball almost even on a glass, making him vertually unplayable. But the same is not the case with Shane Warne. Yes, Murali's records are no doubt the best - but you know how deadly and lethal Warne can be. We all might be remembering the wicket of Gibbs in the WC match, which sealed the fate in Aussies favour.