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What is a fair way to compare pacers to spinners?

subshakerz

International Coach
Was thinking the other day about how difficult it is in rankings to compare spinners with pacers in terms of impact. The immediate example I think is how Warne is considered a better bowler than McGrath despite McGrath having generally superior stats to boast.

Given that spinners face more difficulty in terms of being dependent on conditions and which innings they bowl in, is it fair to give them leeway in terms of their comparison with pacemen? Especially since they take longer to set up a batsman in general?

A worldclass pacer normally has a sub-25 average, but few spinners ever achieve this sort of record. Even Warne never broke below 25 in his career from what I gather.

Would it be fair to bump the average/strikerate a few points for a spinner in a direct comparison? Or are they simply apples and oranges? What would be a good standard to set?
 

Himannv

International Coach
Not sure about apples and oranges, but I'm pretty sure it was conclusively proven that Mangoes > Tendulkar.
 

Red

The normal awards that everyone else has
The immediate example I think is how Warne is considered a better bowler than McGrath despite McGrath having generally superior stats to boast.
I'd question this for starters!.

Not sure there's an easy way to compare statistically. Perhaps a bit of a combo of WPM plus SR gives you a better indication when comparing the two, because averages will generally favour elite quicks over elite spinners.

As an example, Warne took 4.9 wickets per test, and McGrath took 4.5. McGrath's SR was 52 while Warne's was 57.
 

TheJediBrah

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Well for starters it depends heavily on where they play. If they're Australian, then yes it would be fair to compensate the spinners for playing in unfair conditions.

But if you're an Indian or Sri Lankan, playing regularly in spin friendly conditions, if anything it's the opposite. I'd like to see someone go and tell Pat Cummins that his bowling in Bangladesh wasn't as good as his stats show because he's a fast bowler and Nathan Lyon's performance was better than his figures show because he's a spinner
 

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