Warne vs. Murali, when it counts

Last year I attended the book launch in Bangalore of Men in White, a collection of essays on cricket by Mukul Kesavan. In his talk that day, Kesavan was speaking in justifiable raptures about Statsguru, the Cricinfo device that this blog relies on. One remark of his struck me. He said, "With Stasguru, you can compare Warne and Murali and see how Murali performs better on every single statistic." The two great spinners of our time could not be more different and it is only natural that followers of cricket should, to some extent, be divided into the Warne camp and the Murali camp. I've always thought that Warne was unquestionably the greatest spinner of all time. To my mind, judging a bowler and especially a spinner ought to go beyond statistics, and both Warne's artistry and sense of theatre were unrivalled on a cricket field. But the supporters of Murali argue that his supposed statistical domination means that it is he who is the better bowler. This claim troubled me, because I too often use statistics to make cricketing arguments and to concede Warne's statistical inferiority was to make too big a concession.

So after listening to Kesavan talk about Statsguru as a means for comparing the two bowlers, I decided to test his claim. Any cricket fan knows that on the most basic level of career average and strike rate, Murali is streets ahead not only of Warne but of any other spinner. In 123 Tests, Murali has 756 wickets at an average of 21.96, striking every 54 balls (a good strike rate even for a fast bowler). Warne on the other hand took 708 wickets from 145 Tests at 25.41, striking every 57 balls.

But these statistics are deeply misleading. This is because there are huge inequalities in test cricket in terms of which countries can play quality spin well and which can't. In the period under consideration, England, South Africa, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and West Indies (barring Lara and Chanderpaul) were on the whole not good players of spin. The countries that play spin reasonably well are, it is fair to say, Pakistan, Australia, India and Sri Lanka. How do the records of Warne and Murali compare against quality players of spin?

Let's look at Murali first. The games under consideration are those Sri Lanka has played against India, Australia and Pakistan. Murali has played 45 such tests, a large enough number to be a fair sample (in statistics, a sample size over 30 is generally considered large). In these games he has taken 226 wickets at 29.26, striking every 62.5 deliveries. While certainly respectable, this shows that against the best opposition Murali has been a shadow of the terrifying prospect that he presents to lesser batsmen.

We would expect Warne's figures against the three best teams to be worse than Murali's, given the infamous lack of success he has had against India (against whom he averages over 47). Let's look at the figures: in 42 Tests against India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, Warne has taken 192 wickets at 27.87, striking every 58 balls. These stats are scarcely worse than his overall career figures and clearly superior to Murali's.

It is often sad that Murali's stats are padded by cheap wickets against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh and while Sri Lanka's schedule isn't his fault, this is true. He has 163 wickets at under 15 against sub-Test quality opposition, whereas Warne has only 17 wickets against these two countries.

It is evident, thus, that Murali's supposed statistical superiority is far from obvious when we consider the games that really matter. In closing, I'll look at one last statistic, the subject of my study on Australian batsmen: the home/away disparity. As I pointed out last time, Warne actually performs somewhat better away from home, averaging 26 at home and 25 away. Murali on the other hand is far more effective at home, taking 472 wickets at 19.36 with a strike rate of 50.7 as opposed to 284 wickets away from home at 26.28 with a wicket every 60 balls, both figures that inferior to Warne's away-from-home performance.