While having recorded his worst ODI bowling performance, he also recorded his best ODI batting performance of 27, with a couple of huge sixes too.

Good point there. He surely did his bit with the bat. Will be interesting to see how he does in the 'final' final! Bandara got only got 5 overs while Vaas was a class apart.?

This is not all suprising for me, I always thought of Murali as a minnow basher and today it showed that he can't bowl against class batsmen on non-friendly picthes.

The amount of wickets Murali has is because he bowls on very friendly spinning tracks back at home and he also plays against the minnows on a more freqeunt basis.

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CC

Murali is an amazing bowler. No one can have his record of wickets by just going on what you have said about him.

I disagree with you saying he is an amazing bowler, I think he is an ordinary spinner who only gets wickets because he has tailor-made spinning wickets back at home and that he plays the minnows alot, which increases his wicket tally.

An amazing bowler has skill in which he can take wickets never mind the conditions, for example Malcolm Marshall who took wickets on any surface. The other day against Australia Murali had no clue how to play top class batsmen, the same why he was struggling against the Indians recently.

I think if a spinner was able to ball on the pitches Murali has for more than half of his career he would end up with 1000+ test wickets to his name. If Shane Warne got the chioce of the picth he would have prefered he would also have more wickets than Murali, if Curtley Ambrose had picthes like the WACA who knows how many wickets he would have got.

To say Murali is a great bowler is wrong IMO.

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CC

i admitt i havn't seen much of Murali mainly due to me not having sky etc. What i am basing my opinions on are what i have read or heard. I have heard so many great things about Murali and even Warne, the best bowler in the world says he is a good bowler and i heard hims ay he thought Murali will be the first bowler to take 1000 test wickets, now for someone as good as warne to say that he must be pretty good. Judging that you are the only person i have ever heard say something bad about Murali (ignoring the chucking debate) i still maintain my thoughts that Murali is an amazing world class bowler, just by looking at his stats i can see that.

Waseem...You rate Murali (according to what you have said in another thread Who is the best spinner?) as the second best spinner in the world right now. Yet you rate him as an "ordinary spinner". Are you saying bar Warne that all spinners in world cricket are ordinary?

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James May

Yes I believe Shane Warne is far better than any spinner at the moment. He is a great spinner and I don't think any other spinner at the moment come close to him in greatness or skill.

Some poeple will have different opinon about Murali but in my opinon Murali is NOT a world class bowler as people have been saying, and my reasons for that is said in my post above.

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CC

I understand your point of view and I am not doubting that, my opinion differs but that's for another thread, however you imply all other world bowlers are "ordinary". I believe this is definitely not true. Kumble, Vetorri, MacGill, Kaneria, Singh...these are all class bowlers. YES they can look ordinary compared to someone like Warne. However they are still class bowlers, if anything this shows that Warne is that much better compared to everyone else but not that all other spinners bar Warne are ordinary.

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James May

Murali is no doubt in Warnes class, but Murali has always struggled in Australia in comparson to anywhere else in the world, he is not the bowler he use to be psyically due to his elbow injury, he could go two ways he will either become a smarter bowler like Warne ( because psyically Warne is no what he use to be but he has become a better bowler with age, wisdom and accuracy ) if murali does that he will be around for a long time if not i think he will retire before Warne. Every bowler get smashed from the very best to the very worst. Ok i have not seen a bowler get smashed like that ( especially Murali ) but in a one day match where ponting makes 120 odd and symonds makes 150 odd it could have happened to any bowler even Warne.