Shane Warne vs Muttiah Muralidharan.Who is better?

[Ahmad94]

Murali can spin it bigger than Warne on any pitch.

Very wrong and biased view. And it doesn't matter how much you spin it, it matters if you get a wicket when you bowl.

 

[Cricketdude]

I often wonder why murali was never ever in the frame for the sri lanka captaincy. warne similarly never came into the equation for captaining australia but australia also have a policy of retaining a captain for a long stretch, once he missed out to ponting he never had a look in, but sri lanka have a much shorter turn over and he was so obviously their best player for long stretches.

Shane Warne would have been captain ahead of Ponting but all the stuff in the media meant he wasn't a player you could look up to off the pitch. So they decided to go with Ponting. He captained Australia in 10 ODI matches, losing only one.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

yeah, I know, still wouldn't exactly say ponting was a failure would you? 2 world cups, unbroken streaks of dominance in tests.

i was more interested in why murali was never considered for captain.

 

[sifter132]

I often wonder why murali was never ever in the frame for the sri lanka captaincy. warne similarly never came into the equation for captaining australia but australia also have a policy of retaining a captain for a long stretch, once he missed out to ponting he never had a look in, but sri lanka have a much shorter turn over and he was so obviously their best player for long stretches.

Actually it was Steve Waugh that was Warne's main rival. By the time Ponting was appointed ODI captain in mid-2002, Warne was planning to retire from ODIs after the World Cup of 2003, so having him captain the ODI team for a few months would have been fairly pointless. And by the time Steve Waugh retired from Tests a year or 2 later, Warne was suspended from cricket for drug use, so that was really the last nail in his captaincy coffin. And Ponting had just won a World Cup and was younger, so he wasn't going to get the job anyway.

The Warne vs Waugh debate was a good one though, back in 1998. I think everyone knew Warne was the more inovative tactician, but he wasn't the kind of role model Cricket Australia wanted with his sporadic off field errors with bookmakers, women etc. Warne also wasn't as interested in working with a coach, whereas Steve Waugh really took to the kind of philosophical approach of John Buchanan. Actually I don't think Warne and Waugh get on particularly well these days, partly because of Waugh got the captaincy ahead of him and partly because Steve Waugh was the guy who helped drop Warne in the WI in 1999.

 

[Annoyingdevil]

Shane Warne was better, he won matches for Australia against tougher sides.

 

[Aoun13]

Another stupid "vs" thread.
There is no comparison between an offie and a leg spinner.

 

[Mike23]

erm..Anil Kumble?

 

[cricket_icon]

oh god. you didn't.

which is the one true religion, islam, hindu, buddhism or christianity would be less controversial (obvioulsy not really)

hahahaha but on a serious note.... I HATE THIS THREAD!!!

I can never decide which one is better. I voted for Akram on the other thread because personally I believe in terms of style, attractiveness, artisticness (not a word I know), quality away from home, quality at home, Akram was better than McGrath by a mile BUT there is too little to differentiate between the only 2 spinners I would rate as true all time greats.

I normally opt out by picking both Warne and Murali in my all time test XIs I loved Muralis enthusiasm, his ability to get overly excited when met with batting aggression which added far more to the drama.

I loved Warnes charisma, his artistry and his smack talk.

I'm opting out of this one guys.

 

[Owzat]

Shane Warne was better, he won matches for Australia against tougher sides.

Playing annoying devil's advocate, he never had to bowl against Australia at their peak either - not that Murali did all that much either, 12 wickets at 75.42. Of course the counter argument is Warne had to pick up the pieces once the aussie attack had helped themselves, Murali was the Sri Lankan attack more or less.

There's not much between them if you can look past the "Murali took 800 wickets" simplistic view.

vs ZIM/BAN/WIN/NZE

Muralitharan : 340 wkts @ 17.74 (SR 46.14)
Warne :185 wkts @ 26.46 (SR 57.79)

vs AUS/SRI/PAK/IND/ENG/SAF/ICC

Muralitharan : 460 wkts @ 26.41 (SR 61.63)
Warne : 523 wkts @ 25.05 (SR 57.39)


Hey look, Murali took a lot of cheap wickets against ordinary sides, well what do you know! 176 wickets @ 15.10 (SR 42.23) against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe alone, one either side of 88 against each while Warne bowled over 1000 overs LESS against the same two opponents (17 wickets @ 25.71)

And as to where they played, that also makes interesting comparison :

In India

Muralitharan : 40 wkts @ 45.45 (SR 86.23)
Warne : 34 wkts @ 43.12 (SR 81.03)

In Sri Lanka

Muralitharan : 493 wkts @ 19.57 (SR 50.83)
Warne : 48 wkts @ 20.46 (SR 39.67)

If only Warne had played 10 times as much cricket in Sri Lanka and gained the advantage of said advantage.

In AUS/ENG/SAF/ZIM/NZE/WIN

Muralitharan : 188 wkts @ 26.09 (SR 61.04)
Warne : 581 wkts @ 25.11 (SR 58.55)



Says it all for me, outside the Asian sub-continent Murali wasn't nearly as effective. 612 of his 800 wickets came there, over 75%. And home advantage, well Warne took 319 of his 708 wickets in Australia (45%) compared to 493 of Murali's 800 taken in Sri Lanka (62%)

Of course any averages are going to be skewed if you bowl 57% of your balls in home conditions which favour spin and top that up by playing the two sides who are weak and arguably should not have been playing Tests for much of the time Murali got to prey on them.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

personally for me I do think the 5-fers come into it.

murali took 67 (or 50 without bng and zim) where warne took 37 (and that was in about 40 more matches if we're taking out bng and zim) that's always the one that swings it in murali's favour for me.

if they were batsmen and one had 50 tons and one had had 37 over more matches who would be the better player?

 

[cricket_icon]

^^^ That is a very good point but I try not to use stats too much when looking at which bowler was better. People will then present the counter argument that many of his 5 fors came against "lesser" opposition.

 

[ArcherMcKinley]

In my personal opinion, 5-fers should not give any additional points for the bowler. Here's why.

Warne bowled in a side that consisted of the best strike bowlers. And even if he was given a bowl early on, the team batting would probably be a couple or more wickets down.

Also, according to Owzat, Warne took 319 wickets at home. If you ask me, that's a great achievement. Why? Tracks in Australia assist the seamers more often than not and as I previously mentioned, Aus had the best seam bowlers. Put two and two together.

--

But don't mistake me for degrading Murali. I think he's a great bowler, undoubtedly one of the greatest.

 

[stefan]

Murali is a great but personally I have just also favored warne. His charisma is just that x factor that sways it for me.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

In my personal opinion, 5-fers should not give any additional points for the bowler. Here's why.

Warne bowled in a side that consisted of the best strike bowlers. And even if he was given a bowl early on, the team batting would probably be a couple or more wickets down.

Also, according to Owzat, Warne took 319 wickets at home. If you ask me, that's a great achievement. Why? Tracks in Australia assist the seamers more often than not and as I previously mentioned, Aus had the best seam bowlers. Put two and two together.

--

But don't mistake me for degrading Murali. I think he's a great bowler, undoubtedly one of the greatest.

but doing that essentially turns something murali achieved against him, just like when people say, oh he took all those wickets agains bng and zim but neglect to mention his average is still superior. what was he supposed to do in those instances when he was playing weaker teams or was posing the only threat in the sri lankan bowling attack to the opposition? fail miserably? i think if I was a club cricketer and I was expected to bowl from one end for entire innings and take wickets at an exceptional average that should count for me, not against me. it's an immense responsibility unlike anything that almost any other bowler in the history of the game has shouldered.

I don't mind people noting that warne suffered this disadvantage but I mind it being turned into a disadvantage against murali. I'd also be interested to see how many overs warne had to bowl when australia were on flat pitches. I'll maybe dig up the stats later but I'd venture when teams scored in excess of of 450 warne's load was shared between the other bowlers more protecting his average because mcgrath, gillespie etc. posed an equal threat whereas i'd imagine when sri lanka were on the recieving end of huge scores on flat pitches murali would see his average sky rocket as he'd be expected to bowl almost right through the entire innings.

the point about the seaming tracks is valid, i totally accept that murali did have an easier time taking wickets in sri lanka than warne would have had in australia, however I also think that his home average being 6 runs better means that he made up for this slightly as his performances were significantly better to reflect the advantage.

 

[Owzat]

In my personal opinion, 5-fers should not give any additional points for the bowler. Here's why..

Here's the real reason why, it doesn't matter whether it is 5+1 or 3+3, it's still six.

As for whoever said about taking wickets against minnows, who is the better bowler one who takes 5/37 against Bangladesh and 0/100 against India, or one who takes 5/37 against India and 0/100 against Bangladesh?

If you take the averages and multiply them through so both bowlers took 100 wickets in each country that both played, and by doing so made it like for like, here's their career figures :

100 wkts pro rata in SRI/AUS/ENG/SAF/IND/PAK/NZE/WIN/ZIM/BAN

Muralitharan : 1000 wkts @ 30.06
Warne : 1000 wkts @ 27.53

That massively highlights how much bowling in Sri Lanka favoured Murali, if he had to take his wickets in each country equally then he'd be found out. Unfortunately you can't do the same vs each country as Murali demolished Bangladesh, West Indies, New Zealand and Zimbabwe to such an extent his average is skewed :

100 wkts vs NZE/BAN/WIN/ZIM : 400 wkts @ 17.85
100 wkts vs PAK/IND/SAF/ENG/AUS : 500 wkts @ 27.29

And same for Warne :

100 wkts vs NZE/BAN/WIN/ZIM : 400 wkts @ 26.11
100 wkts vs PAK/IND/SAF/ENG/SRI : 500 wkts @ 28.07


Fact is Murali took nearly 400 wickets against the weaker sides (340) whereas Warne took less than half (185) having bowled nearly FIVE THOUSAND balls less or EIGHT HUNDRED AND THIRTY THREE overs less. And the versus comparison favours Murali as it doesn't factor in where the matches were played with Murali taking 62% of his wickets in the favourable conditions of Sri Lanka at a rate of less than 20 per wicket.