CricAddict
International Coach
Yes, from the way they discussed, it did seem that they didn't watch a lot of cricket outside of India. Regardless, their main point was that Kumble performed okayish in all conditions while Warne was bad in India.
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The bowler of the 90s and 00s
- Thread starter bagapath
- Start date
CricAddict
International Coach
Came here to say what Riggins said. If there is a way to calculate average wickets taken by pacers and average wickets by spinners, I believe spinners will win.
bagapath
International Captain
If spinners can take more wickets, there will be more spinners than fast bowlers naturally.
They can't bowl with the new ball. And they can't be effective with a ball more than 60 overs old. They can't bounce and hit batsmen to create doubt in their foot work. You can't pack a team with spinners anyway because their SR is at least 15 balls more than a comparable fast bowler's.
Despite all this two mother ****ers have taken 708 and 800 wickets bowling spin. Show some respect.
bagapath
International Captain
Not true. Pacers are more effective overall.
For the record, in all test match cricket so far,
887 spinners have taken 20937 wickets at 34.2 average and 79.9 SR, with each bowler claiming 23.6 wickets.
1257 pacers have taken 39223 wickets at 30.5 average and 64.7 SR, with each bowler claiming 31.2 wickets.
That really puts warne (708@25.41/57.4 SR) and murali's (800@22.72/55 SR) achievements miles ahead of everyone else's.
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OverratedSanity
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Yeah, Kumble was pretty bad overseas intially... got better and better as he got older though. And that tour to Australia was just heroic bowling from him. Virtually every pitch in that series was a road and against that incredible batting lineup most spinner wouldve been decimated. Carried our entire attack and almost won us the series.
Tom Halsey
International Coach
Two things with that though.
Firstly, although I have no hard evidence for this, I strongly suspect that historically there have been more part-time spinners than part-time pacers, which would distort the spin average upwards. The lower number of wickets per bowler would tend to back this up actually.
Secondly, even if that isn't true I think the numbers are irrelevant anyways. I don't think Warne and Murali deserve credit for bowling something that is, if we accept these numbers, less effective. There are good reasons for arguing that a good spinner might be more valuable than a good pace bowler (more overs and thus more wickets per match if you have a good one), but judging them to a lower standard because most spinners tend to be worse isn't one of them IMO.
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Tom Halsey
International Coach
Also quickly on McGrath vs Ambrose, I think that rating McGrath the higher of the two is a perfectly valid opinion but I always find it strange when that is justified on stats/record seeing as Ambrose actually has the marginally better average despite having to play about 1 in 4 (or something) of his Tests vs Australia, something McGrath never had to do. The difference definitely isn't enough to be statistically significant so as I say I think rating McGrath the higher is still valid (even though I'd disagree) but I see a statistical justification of that view quite often and it doesn't make too much sense to me.
bagapath
International Captain
1. the difference is really huge over such large numbers that all those aberrations are irrelevant. if you were to take into account only the 100+ club for this exercise, thus eliminating part timers, i am sure the fast bowlers would still have lower average, lower strike rate and more wickets per bowler.
2. warne and murali dont need extra credit for bowling spin. i never brought it up. their wicket tally was what that swayed my vote for them. some posters claimed spinners always claim more wickets than the pacers. it is not true at all. in fact the opposite is the truth. that is the point of these stats.
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Tom Halsey
International Coach
Apologies, that is how I interpreted "That really puts warne (708@25.41/57.4 SR) and murali's (800@22.72/55 SR) achievements miles ahead of everyone else's", because I assumed "that" was referring to spinners' generally worse records, but fair enough if I was wrong.
OverratedSanity
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I didn't mean to say all spinners get more wickets. The point is that a quality spinner will get a larger quanity of wickets than a quality pacer of approximately equal greatness. There is no way any pacer no matter how magnificent will get much more than 5 wpm at most. It's just the nature and role bwling. To bowl plenty of overs and take bags of wickets, though not as frequently as quicks.
Most great pacers are around the 4-4.5 wpm range. Even merely good spinners fall in that range. Harbhajan picked up more than 4 wpm, Swann was over 4.5 wpm. Some freak pacers like Lilee and Steyn are over 5wpm, but that's pretty much the limit of what's physically possible. Spinners bowl more and thus get more wickets, simple as. Doesnt take away from Murali and Warne because you still have to be freaking ridiculous to get 6-7 wpm. But holding that as an advantage over quicks is unfair. It would be like saying Ronaldo is better than Zidane because he scores more goals. He may actually be better but the nature of his role means he'll obviously have more goals.
bagapath
International Captain
just look at 100+ wicket takers and see how spinners and pacers fare on the wkpm stat. you might be willing to change this assumption of yours after that
warne and murali are freaks of nature. bigger freaks than lillee and hadlee and steyn happen to be in their fast bowling community.
it is not true.
some merely good pacers like mcdermott and hughes fall in this range too.
NO
Not true.among pacers lillee, steyn and hadlee averaged more than 5 wickets per test. How many spinners other than murali average more than 5 wickets per test from this era? not even warne does that. even good/great spinners fall in the 4-4.5 range. there are a lot more 4.5 wk/test pacers than spinners. there is no evidence to your claim that spinners take more wickets because they bowl more. it is not true because they need 12-15 balls more to take a wicket compared to a pacer. so their higher workload doesnt necessarily mean they end up with more wickets.
warne and murali are freaks of nature. bigger freaks than lillee and hadlee and steyn happen to be in their fast bowling community.
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marc71178
Eyes not spreadsheets
I'll have a pint of what's he's been drinking.
marc71178
Eyes not spreadsheets
Depends on what standards you have. By Indian standards, that's an ATG quick bowler. By anybody elses' its very mediocre.
Well you're in the minority then. Kumble may have been underrated but he's well short of ATG status. Being underrated in itself does not make you an ATG.
Not going to get into some long winded pedantic debate on what exactly is ''so much worse''. He was comfortably better than Sehwag. Not that that's a slight on him, Ponting is comfortably better than most people to have picked up a cricket bat (Bradman and the usual suspects - Lara, Tendulkar, Richards etc excluded) and belongs in the greatest after the Don argument. A magnificent record and arguably one of the best peaks ever..and along with McG, Warne and Gilly, he was the biggest reason for the dominance of the great Australian side. While Sehwag was no mug with the bat and a good - even very good batsman - he is not close to Ponting.
As far as Warner goes, guy's gun. Slayed the then best side in the world in their own backyard...3 tons in 3 games. Enough said. It's a bit too much to say he changed the way test cricket looked at openers. How many other openers have we got like that now? Just Warner. You could argue Sehwag was one of a kind - he was; but I doubt we'll see too many following his footsteps. Warner - Sehwag or no Sehwag - would have played the same way he is and has been playing.
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OverratedSanity
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Of course spinners' higher workloads don;t necessarily mean they'll end up with more wickets. But great spinners will,on average pick up more wickets, because theyre great and bowl marathon spells. This is not a phenomenon unique to Warne and Murali. Other ATG spinners like Grimmett, Tayfield, O'Reilly all picked up tons of wickets... well over 5 wickets per match, in some cases like Grimmett, over 6.
And bagapath, taking a look at the top 100 wicket takers doesnt really prove anything. Great spinners have always been extremely rare. At most 1-2 come out each generation. And I'm only talking about the very top tier of spinners... Warne, Murali, Grimmett, O Reilly, Tayfield all picked up tons and tons of wickets because 1) They were great, great, beyond epic bowlers 2) They were spinners
It's quite obvious to me that we will never ever have a pace bowler who will pick up 6 wickets per match. It's just not possible. But I'm pretty sure we'll get spinners who'll get 6+ WPM like Murali, because it has happened before, though rarely. IMO, Lilee and Steyn who average 5+ WPM despite playing their whole careers in reasonably strong bowling attacks are freaks too, as freaky as Warne, Murali etc.
OverratedSanity
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Arguable. Definitely not as good as the likes of Ponting, though, let's be realistic
harsh.ag
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
True. But he is still an ATG. The man is in some experts' ATXI as an opener. And that is not even relevant information per se, but still
Look as I said in the Sanga thread it depends on someone's criteria when it comes to rating players. I wouldn't argue against anyone calling him an ATG but he's comfortably behind Ponting.