Murali The Greatest Asian Cricketer Ever

[Fusion]

murali will always have an asterisk against his name due to his illegal action. The rules have now been changed for him, and all that is fine, but i wouldnt rate him top of the heap due to that reason.
The ppl on the top have to be clean on all counts since there are all sorts of talented and overachievers we are looking at here.

You are entitled to your opinion of Murali, but please don't post in such a baiting manner.

 

[asty80]

Not that I want to strt a controversy, but felt I had to put a valid reason on why I made that choice.
If you feel that there is nothing wrong with the action and consider him an all time great, then fine. I think the doubters are in a huge minority, so it shouldnt affect his fans.

 

[honestbharani]

Not that I want to strt a controversy, but felt I had to put a valid reason on why I made that choice.
If you feel that there is nothing wrong with the action and consider him an all time great, then fine. I think the doubters are in a huge minority, so it shouldnt affect his fans.

All that is fine but it is no fact that his action is illegal, in fact, the truth is that his action is, was and has always been totally legal.. Juz a bit difficult for some to comprehend but clean nonetheless...

 

[Ikki]

AWHB. He's legal, there is nothing blotting his career or his achievements. A little bit of reading goes a long way. I was one of those in the beginning, many years ago, that thought he was chucking it. A bit of science and some sense; and I know he is legal.

 

[asty80]

But isnt his eblow bent and he cant straighten it completely?

 

[honestbharani]

Wrist spinners were allowed to do that and he IS a wrist spinner as he uses his wrists just about as much as any leggie or chinaman bowler would do..


Plus, studies revealed that EVERY bowler in the world was straightening/bending their elbows except Sarwan...


No point going over past history here.. There are any number of threads in CW if you wanna read up on it, along with links to relevant articles etc... Just that the fact is that Murali has always had a clean action and that's that..

 

[smash84]

No point going over past history here.. There are any number of threads in CW if you wanna read up on it, along with links to relevant articles etc... Just that the fact is that Murali has always had a clean action and that's that..

This

 

[smash84]

.

Sachin>some more Daylight>others.

.

errrr......This is stretching it............

 

[ankitj]

Don>Daylight>Sachin>some more Daylight>others.

Whole heartedly disagree. Other than Murali, there are cricketers like Sobers, Imran, Hadlee, Viv Richards who trump Sachin IMO, and arguably a few others too.

 

[subshakerz]

here are the best cricketers in both formats

Tests:

imran
murali
tendulkar
gavaskar
kapil

ODIs:

tendulkar
akram
dhoni
jayasuriya
kapil

based on that it is possible to rank the top 6 asian cricketers in the following order.

tendulkar
imran
murali
gavaskar
kapil
akram

I don't really attach that much weight to ODIs in measuring cricketers. To me, test cricket is true cricket. Nowadays, the ODI game is totally different to tests and much closer to 20/20, and in the 80s, ODI wasn't given much seriousness except if it was the World Cup. Marshall shouldn't rank lower as a bowler overall just because he averaged 26 in ODIs, for example. Bevan may be Australia's greatest ODI batsman but he would rank quite lowly on a list of great Australian cricketers. Test cricket is meant to be the truest test and reflection of a cricketer's quality.

Given that, Imran Khan should rank higher in ODIs with a much better record than Kapil (batting average of 33 and bowling of 26) and being a great captain. Ranking Kapil over Akram is a stretch as well in tests.

 

[smash84]

I don't really attach that much weight to ODIs in measuring cricketers. To me, test cricket is true cricket. Nowadays, the ODI game is totally different to tests and much closer to 20/20, and in the 80s, ODI wasn't given much seriousness except if it was the World Cup. Marshall shouldn't rank lower as a bowler overall just because he averaged 26 in ODIs, for example. Bevan may be Australia's greatest ODI batsman but he would rank quite lowly on a list of great Australian cricketers. Test cricket is meant to be the truest test and reflection of a cricketer's quality.

Given that, Imran Khan should rank higher in ODIs with a much better record than Kapil (batting average of 33 and bowling of 26) and being a great captain. Ranking Kapil over Akram is a stretch as well in tests.

True but the weight given to ODIs by each individual would be different and is quite subjective. Most regular posters on CW would probably give negligible or very little weight to ODIs. Having said that Bagapath probably has given more weight than usual to ODIs and hence he feels Sachin should be ranked higher. I guess most on CW won't agree with his weight allotment to different formats but then it is his own subjective ranking. For an individual equating cricketers with only ODI ranking might not even have Imran in the top 10.

 

[weldone]

Murali and Sachin are very very hard to split at this point in time.

I personally don't rate Imran's batting highly. Imran, to me, was an outstanding bowler, a brilliant captain, a mediocre fielder and an average batsman. I rate Murali's bowling (or Sachin's batting) better than Imran's bowling, too.

I am quite certain that I'll keep both Murali and Sachin in my all-time test and ODI XI. Imran will surely be out of the ODI XI (doesn't mean I attach as much importance to it as Bagapath does). He's a very good candidate for the test XI, but not a certain choice for me.

 

[subshakerz]

I personally don't rate Imran's batting highly. Imran, to me, was an outstanding bowler, a brilliant captain, a mediocre fielder and an average batsman. I rate Murali's bowling (or Sachin's batting) better than Imran's bowling, too.

I wouldn't call Imran an average batsman. He was a full-fledge batsman in the latter half of his career, and averaged over 40 during his bowling peak. If he could average 37 in the 1980s, I'm sure he could average 40 plus in the 2000s.

 

[weldone]

I wouldn't call Imran an average batsman. He was a full-fledge batsman in the latter half of his career, and averaged over 40 during his bowling peak. If he could average 37 in the 1980s, I'm sure he could average 40 plus in the 2000s.

He was good for the last few years of his career, but was pretty average overall. Averaged 21 in West Indies, 36 in Australia, 35 in England. Yes, he might have averaged over 40 in 2000, but that alone doesn't make one good (unless we are considering the current Pakistani lineup). Yuvraj Singh averages over 40 in 2000 too, IIRC.

Actually Imran's batting was quite good for a bowling allrounder. But if compared to a specialist batsman, it was no good overall. That's what I meant. I maintain the same about Sobers' bowling, too.

 

[bagapath]

usually i dont attach so much weightage to ODIs. even now I didnt, I hope, otherwise I wont have imran as the second best asian cricketer when I dont consider him a top ODI player.

my final rankings are based on a mix of stats, legacy, personal preferences and special performances.

i am quite comfortable with the final rankings, after considering both forms of the game.

A list that reads

tendulkar
imran
murali
gavaskar
kapil - looks right to me as top 5 asian cricketers of all time. (EDIT: the top four are too close to each other in test cricket in my opinion. i can confidently say they are clearly superior to other greats from the region, like kapil, akram, sanga etc. so if someone else shuffles the first four around, say gavaskar-imran-murali-tendulkar, i wont have too many problems with that either as long as it is limited to tests alone. in ODIs, murali-tendulkar-imran-gavaskar is also an acceptable order for me. only when you combine both formats, the current order becomes more or less the final order in my books)

btw, ian chappell agrees with me in calling dhoni an ATG

Ian-stinct - Dhoni among the greats

 

[subshakerz]

He was good for the last few years of his career, but was pretty average overall. Averaged 21 in West Indies, 36 in Australia, 35 in England. Yes, he might have averaged over 40 in 2000, but that alone doesn't make one good (unless we are considering the current Pakistani lineup). Yuvraj Singh averages over 40 in 2000 too, IIRC.

Actually Imran's batting was quite good for a bowling allrounder. But if compared to a specialist batsman, it was no good overall. That's what I meant. I maintain the same about Sobers' bowling, too.

I guess it depends then on what we call 'average'. He certainly was not a great batsman, but in the 80s he could still walk into any team except West Indies on batting alone. Given that at that time averaging 40 plus was the mark of a worldclass batsman, to finish with 37 is notable. To do that while being an all-time great bowler is a phenomenal achievement.

 

[marc71178]

I wouldn't call Imran an average batsman. He was a full-fledge batsman in the latter half of his career, and averaged over 40 during his bowling peak. If he could average 37 in the 1980s, I'm sure he could average 40 plus in the 2000s.

If he could do it batting in the top order whilst not having so many not outs then yes you'd maybe have a point to call him a fully fledged batsman.

 

[smash84]

Having watched Imran bat somewhat would have to agree that he wasn't a great batsman but he wasn't that bad either.

Although I don't quite agree that all his not outs should be counted against him.

Btw Imran the bowler is just marginally worse than Murali the bowler and Sachin the batsman, if at all, and has a very complete record. The difference is very small and his leadership/batting bring a much much greater dimesnion to the table than Sachin or Murali's other disciplines. His fielding was worse than average though

 

[vcs]

It's always hard to rate an all-rounder properly in their weaker discipline without actually having watched them. It's one area where the stats rarely paint a true picture of a player's utility to the team. For example, I strongly think Sachin was an excellent ODI part-timer (like Yuvraj these days) for a long time in the 90s, but the stats make him out to be quite ordinary. I am inclined to give a lot of weight to the opinions of those who watched Imran and Sobers play, when it comes to assessing them on their weaker disciplines. Unsurprisingly, it's hard to find too many people who actually followed their careers on here.

 

[bagapath]

Btw Imran the bowler is just marginally worse than Murali the bowler and Sachin the batsman, if at all, and has a very complete record.

correct. i would say imran the bowler = murali the bowler = sachin the batsman. considering his all round skills imran is a significantly greater test cricketer than the other two giants. only when you bring in the ODIs sachin pips him marginally. murali, IMO, remains half an inch below imran even then.