Shane Warne analyses spinners' performance in Australia
Shane Warne has collated a list of spinners' performances on Australian soil to prove his theory on why spinners have failed here. Warne leads the list while his nemesis Muttiah Muralitharan does not fare too well, nor does Yasir Shah, who he had called the best spinner in the world earlier.
The list includes all the great spinners over the last 2-3 decades. Warne has collated the number of matches played, wickets taken and averages in Australia. While Warne comes out on top in the avarages, his nemesis Muttiah Muralitharan ends up dead last.Ā
"With all the talk about the spinners this summer. I thought I would put together a graph of the main spinners who have toured Australia in the last 25/30 years, it made for very interesting reading & shows you how the spinners have all averages on Australian shores," Warne worte on Facebook.
While he did praise Aussie batsmen on their performance against spin, Warne was scathing in his analysis on why spinners have struggled in Australia. The two main reasons that Warne said he saw was that the spinners had tried to bowl fast and the teams had gotten their tactics wrong.
"Plus how well the Australian batsmen have played them too! Plenty of reasons why this is the case, but the main two reasons are the spinners have bowled to fast & had the wrong tactics ! I could go on, but it also shows Lyon has done pretty well. I've added my numbers at the bottom for a comparison as people have asked me what my numbers were !" Warne concluded.
All the great players such as Murali, Harbhajan Singh, Daniel Vettori, Abdul Qadir, and Graeme Swann have had their struggles in Australia, with none of the players averaging below 40. Warne tops the list with an average of 26.3 followed Pakistan duo Saqlain Mushtaq and Mushtaq Ahmed with scores of 34.1 and 33.6 respectively. India have their representation in Anil Kumble who averages 37.7 in the 10 Test matches he has played Down Under.Ā
Warne does bring up a very important point thorough his post. Spinners try to use the pace of the quick Australian wickets which ends up not working in their favour. Spinners who use the bouncy nature of the pitch well end up having a higher success rate in Australia.
At Sportscafe, we had compared the performances of Ashwin with the Aussie and Sri Lankan great and where he stands at the current part of his career.