One thing that gets forgotten is the pitches that these guys play on and the context of their teams. NZ is pretty terrible for spin bowlers which means Vettori should be rated a little higher. And they tend to have a pretty toothless bowling attack and set low totals, which leads to opposing batsmen commonly looking to just play out the overs against him in ODI's, meaning his economy will be low but average might be higher. And of course his batting adds a ton of value, especially on that team.
Ajmal is as good as any these days and Afridi has also been very effective, plus he can hit a few in the late overs. Probably this is the best spin tandem going. I think the reason we didn't see Ajmal much sooner was the questions over his action.
Murali is not what he once was and people seem to have figured out Mendis to some extent, although I still think he is going to be one of the top spinners 5 years from now. Both have inflated numbers from playing on the slow turners in SL as well as having played some fairly weak opposition.
The new powerplay rule is really going to stop teams from playing 2 spinners in ODI's, unless one is an all-rounder. For example a team like India, Ishant Sharma can't really take the new ball, so if you'd like to fit in Mishra and Harbhajan you will have to be bowling spinners in the powerplay overs or go with 6 batsmen.
Ajmal is as good as any these days and Afridi has also been very effective, plus he can hit a few in the late overs. Probably this is the best spin tandem going. I think the reason we didn't see Ajmal much sooner was the questions over his action.
Murali is not what he once was and people seem to have figured out Mendis to some extent, although I still think he is going to be one of the top spinners 5 years from now. Both have inflated numbers from playing on the slow turners in SL as well as having played some fairly weak opposition.
The new powerplay rule is really going to stop teams from playing 2 spinners in ODI's, unless one is an all-rounder. For example a team like India, Ishant Sharma can't really take the new ball, so if you'd like to fit in Mishra and Harbhajan you will have to be bowling spinners in the powerplay overs or go with 6 batsmen.
