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The Sri-Lankan veteran spinner Muttiah Muralitharan extolled the legendary leg spinner of Australia, Shane Warne in his recent media chat. Warne was the greatest Australian bowler to take 600+ wickets in test matches. The figure was the second best after the Muralitharan, both the spinners were contemporary of each other. Murali said he learnt many things from Warne during the cricketing days of his career. Shane Warne was renowned for turning the ball with his majestic grip. While Muralitharan was eminent in his playing days for maintaining the discipline with the line and lengths of the ball.
Once Shane Warne bowled a Jaffa ball to English batsman Mike Gatting, that pitched up on the leg stump line and hit the top of off-stump after spinning. This ball was considered as the ball of the century by the international Cricket council and the whole global cricket fraternity.
It would be interesting to see which leg spinner in the future will even get closer to the numbers of these two greats. Muralidharan said that Shane Warne was his ideal leg spin bowler and he learnt many things from him. The number of total wickets taken by Shane Warne is slightly less than Muralidharan. But the Australian playing conditions which majorly assist the fast bowlers should also be kept in mind. As Muralitharan bowled on spin friendly Asian pitches, all his life.
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In the Legends T20 series which happened in the year 2014, Shane Warne and Muralidharan played for the same team in that fixture. That moment was witnessed by the whole world as these two absolute Legends were sharing the side at the same time.
In his recent media interaction during the Legends League Cricket tournament which is going on in India. He said, “I think he was better than me, when I was playing I looked up to him and learnt things from him. We all miss him”.
