Muralitharan had more variety than Shane Warne: Jayawardene

That the game has tilted heavily in favour of the batsmen in the last decade is evident by the fact that the comparison debates on who is better are almost always batsmen centred.

There are occasional bouts featuring Jasprit Bumrah or Mitchell Star or Dale Steyn or James Anderson but the discussion lacks the potency to last as long as the eternal one that included two of the most magical spinners ever Shane Warner and Muralitharan.

Murali ended his career with the most number of Test wickets (800 wickets in 133 Tests), Warne wasn’t much behind (708 wickets in 145 Tests) but experts who sided with him had their reasons to believe why the Australian leggie edged out Sri Lanka’s smiling assassin.

But former skipper Mahela Jayawardene thinks that Warne lacked the variety Muralitharan possessed. 

“Murali was a champion bowler, he went about his game differently to others. Warne did not have the variety that Murali did. Murali knew what he was doing and believed in grinding a batsman down. If he had to wait for ten overs to get a batsman out, he will do that,” Jayawardene told Sanjay Manjrekar in a videocast on ESPNCricinfo.

“Warne and Murali are two different personalities, Warney is a steady leg-spinner but he probably played much more with the tactical honours of you come and attack me, I will get you out, he probably knew that he did not have the variety that Murali had,” he added further.

Jayawardene, who featured in two ICC World Cup finals in 2007 and 2011, and was the member of the winning team of 2014 ICC WT20, feels that it is unlikely for the modern-day bowlers to reach the records which Murali and Warne made.

“We are yet to see if the modern-day bowlers hit the numbers that their predecessors did. The present bowlers are probably up against better batting units. If they even do not hit the numbers like their predecessors, it does not mean they are bad bowlers,” Jayawardene said.

“If you look at the top ten wicket-takers in modern-day cricket, all of them played during the first half of my career. There was Murali, Warne, McGrath, Kumble, Harbhajan, Akram, Waqar, and Saqlain. Their numbers speak for themselves,” concluded the 43-year-old.