Why no mention of Peter Such, John Childs or Don Topley? That's the more pertinent question!!!

Oh yes... They were poor weren't they!!

Muralitharan. Warne has had a great impact on the game, but Murali's achievements are better. He's had to bowl against Hayden, Ponting, Waugh etc who Warne hasn't faced. And Warne has had the suppot of McGrath and Gillespie, and guys like Kasprowicz and Bichel. Murali has often been a lone figure, sometimes with Vaas. Murali has taken his wickets at a better average than Warne. You could always argue that Murali has played a lot of cricket on the subcontinent, but he looks just as deadly in English conditions.

As for leg spin being more difficult than finger spin, it's not relevant to this debate. As Maranello has pointed out, the end result is similar. We're looking for the best spinner ever. That means how well they do against the opposition, no matter how they produce the deliveries.

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Just what is going off out there?

Warne, no doubt. Batsmen have had 12 years to figure him out and still cannot.

Murali, for reasons almost exactly the same as Mongoose up there.

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- VVVRulz..

Warne is a very clever bowler, he always has something in reserve, something up his sleeve, to throw (this is just a figure of speech, i'm not accusing him of chucking ) at the batsman. But the amount Murali can spin the ball is amazing, both ways if we assume his doosra can be used legally. I saw him bowl at Edgbaston a few years ago and he had something wrong with his left-arm which he didn't move. He bowled pretty badly because of his left arm but still took 4 wickets on a very good batting pitch which wasn't spinning too much. He got Butcher out with a ball that pitched about six inches outside leg-stump, spun and hit the top of his off-stump. Brilliant bolwer, look at his wickets per match figures, look how many 10-fors he has, he could reach something like 800 test wickets or something stupid like that.

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Whatever your difficulties in mathematics, I can assure you mine are far greater!
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955

The way I look at it is as follows;

At home Warne takes a wicket every 26.24 runs
At Home Murali Takes a wicket every 20.12 runs

However when they both travel the story changes dramatically;

Away Warne takes a wicket every 25.81 runs
Away Murali takes a wicket every 26.91 runs

Add to this that Warne only bowls 47 overs a match, compared to Murali's 62 overs.

Then you have the amount of times the bowlers have been hit for a Hundred or more runs in an innings;

Warne 29 times
Murali 42 times. This includes the two times he has been hit for 200+

This means on average Murali has conceeded over 100 runs every match in one of the innings, while Warne does this every 2nd match.

So with this in mind, Warne is a more consistant bowler who can take wickets and has less bad performances. Bowls well at home or away. Murali's wickets in the lower order batsmen helps his strike record, where Warne has to share the wickets with Australia's pace bowling.

And the interesting thing is playing in Sri Lanka;

Warne takes a wicket every 20.45 Runs
Murali takes a wicket every 20.12 Runs.

Where playing in Australia;

Warne Takes a wicket every 26.24 Runs
Murali takes a wicket every 116.00 Runs

Warne obviously he has worked harder for his wickets
Everyone of his 589 wickets are well thought

The greatest one day spinner of all time is surely Saqlain. Supreme one day record He's achieved in 7 years what Warne did in 12.

However in test matches Warne has no equal, and saqlain has recently been crap

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Member of the Nicky Boje and Ashley Giles Fan Club. Our motto? "We're humans too!"

I've gone for Underwood.

He played 86 Test matches, for a not very good England team (was there ever a good one?) at a time when not quite so many Tests were played, from the age of 21 to 36.

His score of 297 is not bumped up by matches against questionable quality opposition, though granted he did take eight wickets in his last and only Test against Sri Lanka at Colombo in 1982.

He was a master of wet conditions... something that the modern generation and all that come after will, sadly, never have the opportunity to experiment with.

As his cricinfo profile suggests, had he not joined World Series Cricket in 1977 and one of the rebel South African tours in 1981/82 he would probably have added another fifty to a hundred wickets to his very reasonable total.
This remind you of anyone?

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Red-it, Red-it, Read it and wept

Murali has quite a good record away from home... better than Warne actually! Just as a point of info.