PostsArticles tagged as: abstract hypothetical debates
Two champions, only one winner
By Jonathan Liew last year, mid-November, 22 Comments »
Someone is really going to have to put a stop to the Warne-Murali debate. It’s doing my head in.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy a spot of abstract, hypothetical cricketing banter. My teens consisted of little else, in fact. It’s just that this debate is – or should be – so thoroughly redundant. Is there seriously anybody out there who would take Murali over Warne? Please, step to the front of the class so we can ridicule you.
Murali is, of course, a great bowler and I don’t want to hate on him too much. I was present at his two greatest performances on English soil – The Oval in 1998 and Trent Bridge in 2006. He wins games. He turns it miles. He’s a genuinely laid-back guy in a world of grunting Pietersens and Nels. He is, as I say, a great bowler. Even his batting’s quite fun to watch.
But against a great bowler, surely the greatest. Warne won games, and he turned it miles. But where Murali tends to prey on uncertain, vulnerable batsmen, which is why he so often manages to roll an entire side over, Warne thrived on taking key wickets at key times, and cajoling his team-mates into doing the same. That’s something you can’t measure with statistics. Murali is a genius, but greater than a genius is a winner, and Warne is both. And he bats. And he catches. And he turned Shaun Udal into a Test bowler. Case closed for me.
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