With Murali likely to pass Shane Warne’s test wicket record of 708 in Melbourne this year, I thought I’d get in early and put together some observations and stats as to why Murali will never have anything on the great Victorian.

Warney is a complete cricketer, while Murali is merely a good bowler. Warne is universally recognised as one of the finest thinkers the game has known. Sure he’s never read a book, however get him talking cricket and the man’s genius will show. Warne is a world class slips fieldsman with 125 test catches, and having him so close to the bat allows him to sledge his arse off. For the batsman there is no escape, Warne bowling at one end and fielding in the slips at the other. His great question of the not so great Darryl Cullinan – “so.. what colour was the couch?” certainly didn’t hurt his maintaining an average of 2.6 against Australia.

The only discipline in which Murali can compete is bowling. As a right-arm offspinner, he’s never going to get as much turn as a right-arm wrist spinner.. even if the ICC change the laws for him again and let him bend his arm 180° the different actions determine that a wrist spinner will always get a hell of a lot more work on a ball than a finger spinner.

Murali’s stats are artificially inflated due to several reasons (several of which are beyond his control – can’t blame him for the team schedule):

• Lack of competition from other Lankan bowlers for the 22 wickets per test ; he’s taken 41% of SL’s wickets in tests he has played (700 of 1711)
• Lots of home games on tailor made wickets ; 57% of matches at home, 62% of wickets at home (432 / 700)
• Disproportionate number of games and wickets against minnows ; 23% of his wickets are against minnows (Bangas: 9 tests, 76 wickets | Zim: 14 tests, 87 wickets)
• Deadset his delivery is a shocker – watch this footage and tell me if you genuinely don’t see his arm straightening. The ICC had to change the laws to legitimise his throw, even then his doosra was still deemed illegal.. so they had to make another modification to the law to fit him in.

Warne comparatively for the same criteria:

• Has shared the bowling duties with the likes of Craig McDermott (291 at 28), Glenn McGrath (563 at 21), Jason Gillespie (259 at 26), Brett Lee and Damien Flemming
• 47% of games at home representing 45% of his wickets. With the exception of Sydney Australian pitches have been pace friendly for most of Warney’s career (though this is tending to change now unfortunately)
• Warne has 2% of his wickets from minnows ; (Bangas 2 tests for 11 wickets, Zim 1 test for 6 wickets)
• Warne has a traditional leg spinners delivery, he not only bowls in full accordance with the laws of the game but has also revived the art of leg spin bowling and made it cool again. Richie Beneaud in the 50’s was the last leggie to be used as an attacking weapon rather than trying to restrict batsmen with a run saving field.

I haven’t been able to find stats of the two bowling to top order and bottom order batsman, however I seriously suspect that Warne would have a better record against the top order. The Lankan game plan is to get the tail in then throw Murali at them. I’ve started chants for Warney to open the bowling and have seen Ponting use him as early as the 3rd over, with awesome results.

Notably the effectiveness of Warne’s bowling improved in the latter stage of his career, despite opposition batsmen getting better at playing him, being able to study video footage (and the poms inventing a machine called Merlin which bowls ripping leg spinners at exactly the same delivery speed as Warneys), and despite having gone through finger and shoulder surgery resulting in a loss of balls from his armoury. It was Warney’s abililty to out-think the batsman that kept the bails falling.

Warney exudes Big Match Temperament. He saves his best for the best, and brings it out when we need it most. He took 40 wickets in the 2005 Ashes and scored a career best 249 in the series, nearly beat England on his own! Did I mention that he can bat? I don’t mean just whack the ball around but seriously bat – he’s capable of sustained periods of intense concentration when the pressure is on. He has a first class 100 and a test match 99 (where he was caught off a no ball)

Warne is quite simply the most complete cricketer of his time.. in my opinion of all time. This is one of my favourite Warne quotes (from his Auto-Biography.. that he didn’t write)

I like to bowl a wrong-un when a batsman first comes in. Yes, you are bowling toe ball for him, not the batsman who is on strike. It doesn’t matter if the batsman on strike picks it. The idea is that the new guy at the non-striker’s end knows I can spin the ball both ways so that when he gets to the striker’s end he immediately starts to look for the one that goes the other way. Thinking it will only be a matter of time before I send down a wrong-un, he becomes more and more confused the longer I leave it, looking for something that might not be there.