Muttiah Muralitharan, 'the Don Bradman of bowlers'?

what school did you go to mate? nice things being said about someone doesnt make for facts

Asinine article. You argue that Sir Donald's figures are flattering because he did not face Australian bowlers. Yet you have failed to look at his Sheffield Shield figures - 8926 runs at an average of 110.19 against those "deadlier fellow Australians". Sloppy writing, sloppy research.

Chalk and cheese. Bradman was on a planet of his own. No one got within 40 of his test average. Murali had a fiece rival. Shane Warne.. who bowled with a pure action. Had Stu MacGill bowled longer he would have been on a par with the other two. Bradman WAS WITHOUT PEER.

All quotes from your book's website, and these quotes are all emotional, not logical. If we desired, we can make up a similar list of quotes, from a diverse set of people, to say the same of Bradman. You have your argument, and you'll stick to it, but I find it interesting that you continue, instead of attempting to refute the points others have made in this comments section - uncovered pitches, evenness of the contest in Bradman's absence - you continue to do the equivalent of calling us all boors, incapable of introspection, and just flog your book. Bit shameless, really.

Well, I’ll happily concede that you did find some support – more than I thought but then, I’m told that there are still people out there who still believe that the moon landing was faked and that Elvis is alive. I think we both know I could spend now to Christmas compiling quotes to suggest the contrary. It is interesting that your original argument seemed based on whatever stats you could conjure which supported your belief, however, when confronted with overwhelming stats to the contrary, rather than any attempt to refute them, you have gone for an argument based solely on third party accreditation. Looking at a few of your quotes, all of which date within a year or two of Tendulkar’s retirement when there is always the inevitable outpouring of support and admiration, while I will remain in awe of Dennis Lillee as a bowler till I die and mates who know him reasonably well all suggest he is a terrific bloke, I’m sure even you are aware of the enormous antagonism between him (and other members of the Australian team of that era) and Bradman. I’m sure he enjoyed having a posthumous dig at Bradman, especially in the country that was paying him for his services. Hadlee – he was treated appallingly by Aussie crowds (some may argue he encouraged it but by any standards, it was unfortunate) and there has long been considerable sporting antipathy between NZ and Australia. Hard to see that he would not have enjoyed a chance for some payback by prodding Aussie pride in this manner. Also, he uses One-Day cricket. Fair enough, but given Bradman never played the game, hard to take much from that. I’ll confess I am talking only about Test cricket. Quotes from Indians obviously need to be taken in context, as one could say about any quotes from Australians. The one from Emburey is curious. He merely says how good he thought Tendulkar was (no one is arguing Tendulkar was not a great batsman). He does not say better than Bradman. Perhaps there is more in the actual article but I suspect that if there was then you would have used it. You seem to be using it because of the headline but as a writer, surely you would know that in most serious publications, the headline is provided by the editor and not the writer? And even then, all it says is that Tendulkar has a claim. It does nothing to advance your argument. And yet that is the quote you use to highlight your argument? The quote from Menon uses the stat of 100 centuries to make the claim of Tendulkar as the greatest. Most other stats tend to favour the Don but I guess one grabs hold of what one can. But again, this brings in One-day cricket. As I said, I am only talking about Tests. Still, 51 centuries is a great achievement. But Bradman scored a century every 2.75 times at bat. Tendulkar scored one every 6.75 times at bat. Bradman averaged 4.3 tests a year and scored 2.4 centuries a year. If he had not lost so many years to the War (very productive years in many careers), he would have played, on those averages, 87 tests and scored 48 centuries. So still short of Tendulkar’s 51 but then he would have achieved it in 113 tests less than Tendulkar played. And that does not include the couple of years Bradman lost to illness. Big centuries. Bradman played 25% of the tests which Tendulkar managed yet scored twice the number of double centuries (including two triples) – 12 to 6. So no real surprise that you have moved away from stats to support your conjecture – they overwhelmingly favour Bradman. But there is always more to it than stats (no one is really going to suggest that Adam Voges is the 2nd best batsman of all time). Yet Tendulkar currently sits 24th on the list. You really have to do a bit better than that to be considered the greatest. I’m especially interested that you did not touch on quality of opposition. You dismiss Bradman because he played England, yet they were the only other genuinely top quality side of the day. And yet you conveniently neglect to mention how much Tendulkar benefited from playing Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. I think he averaged a bit over 100 for those games, some 16, which is a not insignificant percentage of his overall number (indeed, one could say a Bradmansque average). Take those out and his average drops to around 50, I think. Still wonderfully impressive but hardly earthshattering. So the only time he matched the Don was playing the worst nations ever to play Tests. The advantage Tendulkar had by playing on covered pitches has been mentioned but it is probably fair to say that the worst pitches he encountered (or some of the worst) were his four tests in Zimbabwe. For those tests, his average was 40. We have not even touched on the benefits of helmets. Did Tendulkar ever play a Test without a helmet? Would not have been many. Had Bradman had a similar advantage, his one poor (on his terms – still averaged well over Tendulkar’s career average) series – Bodyline – would have been negated. Better bats, smaller fields (roped in fields have given today’s batsmen yet another advantage) and on and on. I understand from the above that you have written a book on this debate. With the greatest of respect, that neither makes your conjecture true and nor does it make you an expert. I could write a book on brain surgery but you would not want me operating on you. The suggestion that Tendulkar was greater than Bradman belongs in the same category of fantasies as the fake moon landing.

He's no Shane Warne, let alone Don Bradman

In decades of reading extensively about cricket (as well as watching thousands and thousands of hours, and even listening on radio on the days before the widespread coverage we have today), I can honestly not recall ever having read anything so monumentally ridiculous (with the exception of an article a few years ago on a rival site which listed South Africa’s top five batsmen – neither Barry Richards nor Graeme Pollock made the list but Shaun Pollock did. I’ve not read that site since and if this is the standard of cricket writing here, I will now have to go elsewhere as well). Leave aside the Murali argument and whether he chucked, or perhaps how much he chucked. Leave aside whether Murali or Warne was better. The comments about Bradman are so truly bizarre that it is hard to imagine the writer is serious – perhaps this was simply clickbait? No one will surely ever suggest Tendulkar was not a superb batsman but better than Bradman? I can only assume it was written by someone so one-eyed that they have given up all pretence at objectivity. Or perhaps a relative of Sachin? Or someone who simply has no clue about the game. As others have noted, Bradman played every single one of his tests on uncovered wickets. How long since a test was played on an uncovered wicket? Did Sachin play a single test on an uncovered wicket? Border didn’t so I doubt Sachin did. Did the author consider that Bradman’s career was massively disrupted by illness and by the War – no cricket for the best part of a decade and he comes back at the level he did, at that age? Wow. Consider the differences in travel to get to tests. In gear. In team conditioning. In practice facilities and opportunities. And again, as others have noted, if it was all that easy, why was no one else within cooee of him? It makes no sense. The writer seems to be saying Bradman was not that good because he was playing England (bet that went down well over there). Is he aware that prior to the arrival of Bradman, tests won/lost were pretty close to even? It was Bradman who tipped the scales in favour of Australia. He quotes bowling figures. Did it never occur to him, or did it simply not suit this ludicrous argument, that had Bradman been playing for England then the figures would have been very very different (he includes Lindwall – if he knew his cricket history, he would be aware that Lindwall played only a few tests in Bradman’s time – the Invincible tour and a couple before that though even then, chicken pox reduced his bowling (12 overs in his first test innings, none in the 2nd innings, sick for the 2nd test and a better contribution in the final 3 tests). It is surely easier to argue that the vast majority of Bradman’s tests were against the very top opposition of the day, and not to dismiss England so absurdly. It makes Bradman’s achievements even more extraordinary. But turn it around. Take away all the tests which Tendulkar played against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. His average drops significantly. Indeed, he is right back in the pack (granted a pack of excellent batsmen) when you do this. To dismiss Bradman because he played England so often and yet to pump up Tendulkar on the back of many tests against what really was inferior opposition is the height of hypocrisy and stupidity. And does the author seriously expect us to believe that the wickets on which Tendulkar played, not just in the Sub-continent but everywhere, were not uniformly of a far friendlier nature than those faced by Bradman? It would be very easy to go on but one suspects that the author would not be convinced if whatever divinity in which he believes, if he does, turned up on earth and told him how wrong he was. To conclude, Sam Loxton, part of the Invincibles, told a great story at a dinner a few years before he passed. Apparently, a year or so after the Invincible tour, a benefit game was organised for Bradman at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Loxton was at mid-on when Bradman came out to bat, well into his 40s at this stage. Keith Miller, no friend to Bradman and probably the fastest bowler in the world at the time, was bowling. As he walked to his mark, he said to Loxton, words to the effect of “I reckon I have this bloke figured out”. Which is hardly a big claim for one of the world’s quickest bowlers when bowling to a retired player in his 40s, who had not touched a bat in the best part of a year. Miller let fly with a bouncer. Loxton said it was one of the fastest balls he ever saw and it missed Bradman’s nose by a whisker. Bradman was obviously not expecting it in a benefit game. As Miller walked back, he said to Loxton, “told you. Now watch this”. Miller steamed in and followed up with an even quicker bouncer. Loxton said that Bradman hooked it with such force that it smashed the fence and had there not been concrete stands, he reckoned it would have ended in the Harbour. Not bad for an old man. I realise that story does not decide anything definitively but I do like it. I would add that I have never heard a single good judge of the game, and with the greatest respect I will never include this author in that category, ever suggest that Bradman had an equal, let alone that Tendulkar or any other player was superior. It really is ignorance for this author to suggest it.

Your article here, regardless of what it provides, is a continuation of an argument you have based a career on; I followed your links, and see that you wrote a book based on declaring Sachan Tendulkar the best batsman of all time. Some of what you are doing is perfectly fine; you are trying to demystify Bradman the man, which is certainly a good thing. But you are unnecessarily reductive in your analysis, relying on statistics to make your points, and you use postmodernist deconstruction haphazardly; you deconstruct Bradman's reality, but not Muralis, or at least not to the same extent. If you are going to call someone the best ever, which is what was meant by calling Murali the 'Bradman' of bowling, then you have to be the best both of your era and all time. Murali wasn't necessarily even the former, much less the latter (if you want to see my arguments for that, see my earlier comment). A case can be made, certainly, but you aren't making that case; you are trying to say, obliquely, that Tendulkar is better than Bradman, and thus the appellation that Murali is the 'Bradman' of bowling is incorrect.

Whilst I don't agree with your argument, Rudolph, you've certainly made a meritorious case here. I will say, though, the other bowlers he played alongside doesn't just work in the way you state. True, it means that he had to be both an attacking and a defensive option, and the batsman just had to keep him out, but it also resulted in him taking vastly more wickets for his side over the duration of his career than any of his contempories. Brian Lara, before he started to wind down his career, chose when his side should bat - and when he showed up to bat, he bat for as long as he wanted, due in part to being impossible to get out and his captaincy of the West Indian side - and for precisely how long, leading to him making 380 and then 400 in fairly short order. Murali, unlike another contempory, Warne, could potentially take his 5-8 wickets a test, knowing that his teammates were unlikely to take wickets off him. Warne, on the other hand, had to deal with three facets of Australian cricket taking potential wickets away from him; the lack of true turning surfaces provided to him in the places where he played the majority of his cricket (Australia and England), the dominance of pace bowling over the Australian era (Gillespi, Kasprovic, Lee, Bichel, Clark) and, finally, he shared wickets between himself and McGrath. Statistically, Murali is and was always going to be superior to Warne, but this is where I think your article falls a little flat. Murali was an absolutely terrific bowler - to those calling him a chucker, diuretics are masking agents, are they not? - but, if you combine what I've written with the fact that Murali received a significant amount of his wickets playing against lesser sides - sides that, might I add, Warne played negligibly against - you will find that Murali, despite his statistical dominance, is not even the best bowler of his era, let alone being the 'Bradman' of bowling. And, finally, it is probably good to unpack the legends of the past, but cricket as a sport is multifaceted; you have the raw statistics, but then you have the stories told, and the manner of the game. Statistics are dry, shadowy and ultimately facile records of the past, when the story of Bodyline - which may very well be inflated - is richer by far for the telling of it. You have innings like Dean Jones' 200, which should rate so much higher among the records than the pitiful statistic shown here. You have Ponting's fiery and combative batting in 2005; you have Laxman's incredible ability to fight against both his style and the foreign conditions to make his runs in Australia. The stories of the sport are more important than their accuracy, in most places. In this article you are dismissive in tone to the foes Bradman contended with, in the interest of accuracy. You attempt to diminish his feats, in the interest of accuracy. And, ultimately, you are quite forcibly wrong here, because in the interest of accuracy you have stripped the game to its statistics, which is too reductive an interpretation because cricket is, and has always been, more than the runs you got, or the wickets you took.

The hate was more the catholic/ protestant thingy wasn't it.

You can compare "epochs", but you have to do it in context. Of course the modern athlete is superior to Bradman and his contemporaries. That's not the point. Who knows how phenomenal Bradman would have been on modern flat tracks, with full protective gear, modern bats and short boundires? Bradman was twice as good as any player of his generation, and indeed through history. Mulari is not twice as good as every over bowler in any relevant statistic, be it average, strike rate or wickets taken.

And thats your excuse for being a prat, 'someone else did it first'?

Lol - you do know the rules were modified also to make lee, McGrath, Pollock, Cairns, Gillespies (the list goes on) action legal right? The ICC tested 120 bowlers and 90 or so failed.

Murali was no-balled, that's true. The rules weren't changed to allow him to keep playing. The rules were changed because when they reviewed bowlers using the same technology as they used to test Murali, it became apparent that no one was bowling legally. If you bother to have a look around as opposed to parroting popular myth you'll find some quite useful information... "Tests conducted in the 1990s in England revealed that during a delivery virtually all bowlers flex and extend their arms naturally to some degree as it rotates around the shoulder. This testing revealed that the strict Laws of Cricket which banned any flexing of the arm were impossible to follow. ICC then set the permissible limits of bending at 10 degrees for fast bowlers, 7.5 degrees for medium pacers and 5 degrees for spinners. However it was found that majority of the bowlers (including a few greats) who seemed to have perfectly clean actions were actually going beyond the set limits. This forced the ICC to further increase the permissible limit to 15 degrees and it stands at this currently."

Aah Malcom Marshall, now you're talkin'. The best fast bowler I've ever witnessed , especially being relatively short for a fast bowler at 5'9".

It's an interesting viewpoint Rudolph. From what I have read about Bradman the man, I am not the biggest fan but I think you vastly underrate his achievements. Ultimately to mark down a certain player just because they played in a particular era is pretty unfair. It is not something within their control. I am looking forward to you rubbishing Tendulkar in 40 years time because he never even played in China! WG Grace in his peak years dominated like Bradman, probably even moreso. That many of his opposition would not be of of a great standard compared to today's athletic players in no way denigrates his achievements in my mind. In fact many of the innovations he made to batting technique were passed down the generations which I believe makes him even greater - he changed the way the game was played. Similarly Bradman, with his ruthless run scoring feats pushed the possibilities for batting further forward.

What the article doesn't understand and most pundits fail to appreciate is that you can't compare across generations by saying 'x' or 'y' meant it was better. All you can do is compare against contemporaries and then consider. Mulari was barely the best of his generation - Warne took as many wickets at a similar average playing in less friendly conditions against harder teams (yes he had other advantages, but that is what makes them comparable). Bradman was twice as good as any of his peers - proving that not only did he not play in an easy time etc, he remains statistically twice as good as every other player - not other player has achieved this.