“Anybody who thinks of Sri Lanka thinks of Murali. Sri Lanka is Murali.”
That was the late, great Shane Warne talking in his inimitable fashion about his great spin rival at an event in Colombo in early 2005. Two years before he’d hang up his boots with 708 Test wickets. Five and a bit years before Muttiah Muralitharan would do the same, in dramatic fashion, his final delivery getting him the round figure of 800 Test victims.
Two decades on, Warne’s very apt summation of the relationship between Sri Lanka and its most famous cricketing son still remains very real. And there will be a lot of Murali on show over the next two weeks, with pictures of him brandished around the Galle International Stadium, with the man himself making an appearance at the end. We’ll all be thinking of Warne as well while Australia and Sri Lanka battle it out for the trophy named after the spin masters, as Steve Smith and his team look to win a Test series in the Emerald Isle for the first time in 14 years.
But the debate on who was the greater spinner, Warne or Murali, still has no real resolution. Dozens of experts have weighed in with their opinions from the moment the two generational artistes called it quits.
I will stick my neck out. It’s Shane Warne. The greatest ever. Without doubt.
To start with, we’ll leave the numbers and stats to one side. They’re important but do nothing to explain the artistry of the pair.
There’s no denying that we are talking about two geniuses. One a magician, the other a maestro.
If Murali was a mystery, Warnie was all magic. Warne bamboozled batters, Murali bewildered them.
Murali was always at them. Big, staring eyes, like that of a poacher. Murali was always on the hunt. He’d wear down his prey. No respite. The ambience was one of mystery, but the approach was methodical.
Warne in contrast was always into them. In their heads, in their minds, in their bones. Most times, they were worn down simply by the thought of having to face him. He’d occasionally give them some respite, intentionally doing so though to lure batsmen further into his trap. He was cerebral.
With Murali, they knew what the ball was going to do, while knowing very well that they weren’t often good enough to contend with it. The vicious turn after pitching. The whirling fizz in the air before landing. Even if they could rarely get their heads around how it was possible for it to behave the way it did on every surface, and in every condition. Murali was a master.
Warne would make batters believe the ball was going to do something that they could never fathom, even if it didn’t. He made them see and imagine things that didn’t exist. Warnie was an illusionist.
It’s this additional genius gene that in my opinion made Warne a lot more exciting to watch. There was a sense of theatre with every delivery. Suspense. Drama. Along with the non-stop action, which we saw also with Murali.
Comparing the two is like pitting Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton against each other. Two legendary virtuosos who both played the blues with the ball in hand. But with Hendrix, it was always more than just his captivating music. He was the first- “musical artist”. Just like Warne was the first-ever spin-bowling artist. And you can imagine Warnie setting that Kookaburra (ball, not bird) on fire on stage after he was done mesmerising the batters for the umpteenth time. At times it was as thrilling as it was unimaginable.
It doesn’t make Murali any less a treat on the eyes, just like it didn’t Clapton once he got his hands on a Fender Stratocaster. But Warne, akin to Hendrix, just had a way of casting a spell on audiences that was incomparable.
What about those who had to deal with the prospect of facing Warne and Murali. There have been plenty of views over the years from a multitude of their hapless victims.
Gary Kirsten, the former South African opener turned coach, summed it up succinctly when asked to compare the two greats once. From his unenviable vantage point, he felt like Murali was an even more difficult challenge at times.
“There were fewer moments against Murali, with the ball in the air, when I thought: ‘phew, at least this one won’t get me out’. Against Warnie you would get a ball at least every two or three overs that you knew you could leave alone,” he’d told The Guardian back in 2007.
There were batters, Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara in particular, who found a way of countering and even neutralising both Warne and Murali in their own respective backyards.
Back to those stats I mentioned before. Both struggled on Indian pitches, with their averages ballooning into the mid to late 40s, and both only got Tendulkar out once across seven Tests each. The same record against Lara in the Caribbean. Even if Murali’s record overall against Tendulkar, 5 wickets at an average of 29.60, was better than that for Warne, who had better figures against Lara across the board.
The other more common stat used in these debates is how Murali swallowed up wickets against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, averaging 15 across 25 Tests against the two weaker Test teams. With Warne in contrast only getting to play three Tests in total against them.
Murali fans and the man himself could argue, though, that Warne got to bowl a lot more against a generation of English batters who were clueless against spin. Or that Warne in some ways had the better of the conditions, with the ball turning quicker on Aussie pitches unlike the slow turn of surfaces in Sri Lanka.
Maybe the world will always stay divided in the Warne v Murali debate, even if I may have categorically identified my personal preference as a viewer and an admirer. The fact remains that when the cricket world thinks of spin bowling, they think of both Warne and Murali. For spin bowling is both Warne and Murali. And how privileged are they who get to fight it out for the Warne-Muralitharan Trophy.
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