Shane Warne > Muttiah Muralidharan : Discussion

 Some players are defined by cricket but some defines cricket.

First of all , the hair and the attitude, the effortless swagger and the coolness – he was the best player on the field every time he stepped foot on it.

Words are not enough to describe a greatness of this “ king of spin “.

The most beautiful thing I like about him is the passion towards the game.

A Kid at heart !

Great moments world can never forget.

• The ball of the century

If a single ball could overtake someone’s career this it is !

( 4 june 1993) at Old Trafford

Australia was playing against England in Ashes 1993.On the second day of 1st test , Warne produced an absolute beauty on the first ball of his spell in Ashes , that bawled Mark Gatting out.That ball is also known as revolutionised ball of cricket.

• Dancing with the stump over his head.

A kid at heart indeed !

(August 10th 1997)at NOTTINGHAM ,UK

This was the moment when Australia won the match against England in the Fifth test of Ashes 1997 .Shane Warne celebrated this victory by dancing with stump over his head on the dressing room balcony.

Despite Murali’s stats (consisting of his 800 wickets in Tests & 535 wickets in ODIs being the highest by any other bowler in international cricket) eclipsing Shane Warne’s stats , Warnie was in my opinion a far better spinner & cricketer due to the following 2 facts :

• Warne played & bowled alongside other Aussie world class top bowlers : Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee , many others etc….. whereas Murali was the sole rising bowling star in the Sri Lankan cricket team following Chaminda Vaas’s retirement from International Cricket. Thus it was much harder for Warne, who had to compete with Lee, McGrath, Gillespie in order to take wickets rather than Murali who almost was the sole fearing nightmare / one man army often against the opposition batting team .

• Warne’s home country Australia has been known for having fast bowling friendly pitches favouring pacers / fast bowlers rather than spinners more often & despite the condition, still Warne was able to get 700 + wickets in Tests during those pacer friendly pitches whereas Sri Lankan pitches are more spin friendly as compared to Australian & English pitches, thus giving Muralitharan an advantage to turn his bowl more often with his home pitches supporting him unlike Shane Warne, who had to rely solely on his ability to turn and spin the bowl in those Australian pitches.

The insane thing about warne was that he was a triple threat. He had devastatingly sharp turn, a huge variety of balls, and incredible accuracy. But more than those 3 things was the thing that msde him the greatest spinner to have played the game.

And that was cricketing brain working behind all that. He could both read the pitch, the state of the game and most of all, the state of the batsman's mind to either get under his skin, tempt him or put the fear of god into him with his bowling and tactics.

Whats more he’d be doing it from the first ball they faced.

Let's have a look at his stats across formats -

He took 1001 international wickets in 339 matches at an average of 25.5 at international level in just 2 formats (708 in tests & 293 in Odis).

Muttiah Muralitharan

Let's have a look at his stats across formats -

He took 1347 international wickets in 495 matches at an average of 22.9 at international level in 3 formats (800 in tests, 534 in Odis & 13 in t20is).

Now let's dig deep into the stats and see their performances in different countries.

Tests :

Shane Warne

Here are his averages in different countries he bowled ;-

Australia - 26.39

Bangladesh - 27.27

England - 21.95

India - 43.12

New Zealand - 21.31

Pakistan - 28.00

South Africa - 24.31

Sri Lanka - 20.46

UAE - 9.63

West Indies - 39.65

Zimbabwe - 22.83

An important thing to note here is that his away average (24.61) was better than his home average (26.39). And there's no much difference between home and away averages i.e., 1.78.

Mutthaih Muralitharan

Here are his averages in different countries he bowled ;-

Australia - 75.42

Bangladesh - 19.45

England - 19.21

India - 45.45

New Zealand - 19.97

Pakistan - 24.96

South Africa - 26.03

Sri Lanka - 19.57

West Indies - 23.00

Zimbabwe - 27.54

His away average (25.89) was not better than his home average (19.57). And there's a reasonable difference between home and away averages i.e., -6.32.

If we compare their stats,

• Shane Warne had better stats in away conditions than Muralitharan had (even though subcontinent conditions are partly a reason for this).
• Shane Warne's difference between home and away averages (1.78) was good when compared to that of Muralitharan's (-6.32).
• Shane Warne had better averages than Muralitharan in countries like Australia, India, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
• Muralitharan had better averages than Shane Warne in countries like Bangladesh, England, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and West Indies.

Last but not least ‘ His famous 99 with the bat ‘

(2 December 2001) at Perth

Australia was playing against New Zealand in the third and deciding Test. NZ had set big total of 539–9 declared.Shane Warne came to bat when hosts lost 6 wickets on 192 and tried to dig out his team from the big hole and ended up with brilliant 99 . In fact , the delivery he got out was ‘No Ball’ .

Why is Shane Warne, not Muralidharan, called the "king of spin"? After all, he has many more wickets in his hand.

 I can understand why the questioner asked this question , Murali played 13 less games than Shane Warne and still he managed to get 92 more wickets than him which is a huge number

Even though Murali clearly leads in the number of wickets, Warne is called ‘The King of Spin’ for some of the reasons given below:

Murali's performance against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh

Murali picked 89 wickets against Bangladesh and 87 wickets against Zimbabwe. These two countries together which add up to 176 out of the 800 wickets of Murali

Warne, has only 11 wickets against Bangladesh and 6 against Zimbabwe.

It was definitely Murali’s advantage that he played more against them. But obviously that wasn't his fault either.

Chucking Incident

I think the chucking accusation caused him to be less considered as King of Spin as Shane Warne. After bowling so many overs in Australia, suddenly umpire Daryll Hair called him for “throwing” continuously.

It was cleared by ICC and again umpire Emerson called him again for throwing when Murali started bowling leg spin against West Indies.

ICC cleared his action again and again. Many people still call him chucker which is quite unfair considering his action was clearly fair. Whereas Warne didn't had to go through such incidents. And therefore he had a cleaner image.

More competition for Warne

Warne had played in a fantastic Aussie team which contained McGrath, Gillespie, Lee and MacGill. Warne had to be the best among these bowlers. It was tough to pick wickets when you have such an excellent line up who all can win matches on will whereas Murali had only Vaas to with him, so he got chances to pick more wickets and lead the hurdle

Spin friendly conditions for Murali

Warne played most of his matches in Australia. This is one country in which many teams prefer playing without a mainstream spinner in their playing XI. Warne picked up 300 wickets in Australia which is huge considering the not so spin friendly conditions, it is an obvious fact that he grew up playing in these conditions, still, 300 is no small number in Australia

Most of Murali’s matches were played in Sri Lanka, India, and Pakistan. These are spinner paradises. And he has, 600 -odd wickets in these three countries, whereas he has less wickets outside Asia

Confidence level

Brian Lara told this in an Interview.

“Muttiah (Muralitharan) always confused me in the early part of our confrontation, whilst Shane Warne didn’t. Having said that, as my innings grew I felt I had more control over Muttiah, whilst Shane seemed to grow in confidence. They were definitely the two best spinners of my time,” Lara said.

Warne even after getting smashed for sixes and fours had the guts to flight the ball like anything hoping to get a wicket. While Muralitharan had lost some of confidence to fight the ball.

Ball of the century by Warne

In the 1993, Warne plays his first Ashes Test at the Old Trafford, Manchester. Then followed a memory that was etched in all cricket fans’ hearts. Shane Warne produced a ball that pitched outside leg stump to hit top of off stump to English batsman Mike Gatting. He had produced the ‘ball of the century’.

From this ball of the century, everybody called Warne as the King of Spin because he had produced a gem of a delivery which pitched outside leg stump and hit the top of off to make a fool out of Gatting.

Due to all of the above reasons Shane Warne is called the “King of Spin” And not Murali though both were legends. And personally I like Warne more as well.