Waqar Younis or Imran Khan?

[Tigers_eye]

By the way, Murali stat wise >>> Warne. Better in ever category. True BD played a role yet when Warne got his chances he had figures that he wanted to forget. 105/0 and then left the field only to say he had shoulder problems (BS) - so it is a mute point.

[Gowza]

reckon anyone of waqar, wasim and imran have reasons why they could be considered the best. waqar for his strike rate and ability to get batsmen out bowled or lbw (in other words relied much less on fielders and other players to take his wickets than most bowlers). wasim for his pure talent and imran for overall record.

the problem with waqar though, is despite his incredible strike rate he didn't bowl well in certain countries so it's pretty tough to rank him as #1 out of these 3. wasim and imran very close though.

[Jadukor]

Waqar in the limited overs game was not as good as Wasim imo. I remember Waqar getting hit around a lot when the ball wasn't swinging for him. Never saw Wasim get smacked around in his career.

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by Jadukor
Waqar in the limited overs game was not as good as Wasim imo. I remember Waqar getting hit around a lot when the ball wasn't swinging for him. Never saw Wasim get smacked around in his career.

waqar was more of a fast and furious inswinging bowler. wasim was not only a great swing bowler but very good with seam and angles to, was pretty fast in his heyday as well.

[Zeeshan]

[zsayeed]

terrific video! thanks.

[Gladiators]

Originally Posted by Tigers_eye
By the way, Murali stat wise >>> Warne. Better in ever category. True BD played a role yet when Warne got his chances he had figures that he wanted to forget. 105/0 and then left the field only to say he had shoulder problems (BS) - so it is a mute point.

Yeah but Warnie didn't play 70% of his matches on tailored pitches. Not to mention Warne had McGrath and Co. stealing tons of wickets, of course that works both ways - better bowling attack helped to create more pressure, better team allowed Warne to be more adventurous and not worry about leaking runs.

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by Gladiators
Yeah but Warnie didn't play 70% of his matches on tailored pitches. Not to mention Warne had McGrath and Co. stealing tons of wickets, of course that works both ways - better bowling attack helped to create more pressure, better team allowed Warne to be more adventurous and not worry about leaking runs.

good post

[Gowza]

[Gowza]

[Gowza]

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by Zeeshan

Imran also has one of those.

[Tigers_eye]

Originally Posted by Gladiators
Yeah but Warnie didn't play 70% of his matches on tailored pitches. Not to mention Warne had McGrath and Co. stealing tons of wickets, of course that works both ways - better bowling attack helped to create more pressure, better team allowed Warne to be more adventurous and not worry about leaking runs.

You kidding me? McGrath and co. took out most of the best players of the other nations (top order). It is easier when the weight of a nation is not on you. All you have to do is sustain the pressure that the quicks have already created. Whereas, Murali's bowling partners was laughable before Vass came. Even then Vass is not in the class of McGrath and co. McGrath and co didn't steal any wickets from Warne. More like made it easy for him to get more wickets. Murali on the other hand, for many matches didn't bowl in the second innings just like Shakib.

Warne is a once in a life time player for a nation. Murali is once in a life time player for the entire cricket world.

[zsayeed]

great video

thanks!

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by Tigers_eye
You kidding me? McGrath and co. took out most of the best players of the other nations (top order). It is easier when the weight of a nation is not on you. All you have to do is sustain the pressure that the quicks have already created. Whereas, Murali's bowling partners was laughable before Vass came. Even then Vass is not in the class of McGrath and co. McGrath and co didn't steal any wickets from Warne. More like made it easy for him to get more wickets. Murali on the other hand, for many matches didn't bowl in the second innings just like Shakib.

Warne is a once in a life time player for a nation. Murali is once in a life time player for the entire cricket world.

warne is one of the greatest cricketers, murali possibly the greatest spinner. you have to remember with warne that you also get his catching and his batting.

as far as warne getting help, murali having it tougher. it goes both ways, warne had less chance to get more wickets, murali didn't have that issue, but also as you said warne got a bit of help whereas murali didn't.

something else to add, someone once made up graphs of quite a lot of bowlers which showed the % of how many top order, middle order and tail end wickets they got. for warne 23% of his wickets were top order, murali was 25.3%. warne middle order wickets were 39.8%, murali 42.3%. for lower order wickets warne was at 37.1%, murali 32.5%.

so as you can the difference in top order/middle order wickets wasn't that big of a difference considering that murali supposedly had no one to take those top order wickets whereas warne did. that sort of difference can be put down to the fact that warne had more competition for top/middle order wickets than murali, that's why his numbers in that regard are slightly lower than murali's. also consider murali was probably brought in earlier in the innings a lot more often than warne was due to murali's pace attack not being quite as good therefore murali would have got to bowl against top/middle orders more often thus why his numbers are slightly better against them as he got to have a go at them more often.

there really isn't that much of a gap between murali and warne when you consider the respective situations, and i think that's why so many people pick warne ahead of murali because the difference in bowling is so small it comes down to other factors such as fielding and batting.