Vote on your 10 greatest Test spinners of all time.

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Guys

As part of our 'All Time Greatest' lists to be included in the 606v2 Honours Board section, can you all please provide a list of your 10 greatest spinners of all time. I will then average out the results and create an article on the honours board showing who the 606v2 members believe to be the 10 finest spinners to grace the game.

Thanks

In terms of sheer amount of test wickets, Harbhajan is right up there. otherwise, I don't think he should be there in the list of top 10. India itself has produced other better spinners.
other than Chanra and Bedi, Prasanna, Mankad, Gupte, and Venkat.......

Ok, here I go. Based on over forty years of watching the game, a little bit of reading and a lot of gut feeling with apologies undoubtedly due to many spinners of the distant past I've overlooked:

1. Shane Warne

2. Murali Muralitheran

3. Bill O'Reilly

4. Lance Gibbs

5. Jim Laker

6. Clarrie Grimmett

7. Richie Benaud

8. Bishen Bedi

9. Saqlain Mushtaq

10. Tony Lock

Fists - ''Of all time'' is a heck of a long time. Do you think it might be easier for posters and fairer to distant past greats if future lists related to Top Ten since the War or something similar? Just a thought.

Most Indian spinners have not done well on the road, especially Harbie Singh.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?bowling_pacespin=2;class=1;filter=advanced;home_or_away=2;orderby=bowling_average;qualmin1=20;qualval1=wickets;team=6;template=results;type=bowling

guildfordbat wrote:
Fists - ''Of all time'' is a heck of a long time. Do you think it might be easier for posters and fairer to distant past greats if future lists related to Top Ten since the War or something similar? Just a thought.

Fists - thanks for sorting through the votes and putting a composite top 10 on the honours board.

I don't feel strongly about it but wondered if you and others had any views on my thought above. Cheers.

Hi mate, sorry I didn't see your comment above.

I think most votes were post-war anyway, if not all of them, but yeah that's fine we can clarify that next time out.

How are votes weighed?

10 points for the first place, 9 for the second place, like that..?

Yeah mate, though I'll be checking my calculations tomorrow, given that I was rushing through them at work.

Look I know you want Best of All time but I just don't feel qualified to compare the old-timers , on hearsay: so this is from the ones I saw play:

Warne
Murali
Laker
Bedi
Gibbs
Underwood
Kumble
Quadir
Benaud
Ramadhin

alfie wrote:Look I know you want Best of All time but I just don't feel qualified to compare the old-timers

Hi Alfie - that's exactly the same point I made to Fists the other day (above).

Alfie
did you see Laker?How old are you?

Jim Laker played county cricket until the mid 1960s so there's nothing particularly unusual about some of the older 606 v2 posters having seen him bowl.

Although I don't go back quite that far, I've seen film footage of Laker's bowling and read a bit about him to help form a view. The same applies to Richie Benaud. That contributed to them both being in my top ten.

However, whilst I like to think I know a bit about cricket, I readily admit I don't know where the likes of Tayfield, Verity, Rhodes and many others of the distant past fit in. That's why I think it's unfair (for me and them) to judge.

1 Warne

2 Qadir

3 Verity

4 Laker

5 O' Reilly

6 Gibbs

7 Chandrasekhar

8 Benaud

9 Underwood

10 Wardle

While some of the modern spinners haven't done all that great playing away, we also have to account for the uncovered pitches, less quality bats and such other stuff while judging spinners of a more traditional era.

msp - that's a good and fair point. The reference to uncovered pitches is particularly relevant.

I will though flag that the modern bowler is generally supported by much better fielding today than in the past.

It is a very good point. Having watched quite a bit of footage of both of them, it is unclear that Laker say was comfortably a better bowler than Swann. I have gone for Laker in my 10 partly because Swann is still in the middle of his career.

Similarly someone like Harbajhan (until the last 4 years or so) at his peak would have loved bowling in the 30-80s.

It does however tend to confirm just how far ahead Warne and Murali were: both lived through the transition to heavy bats and flat wickets without much change in their figures.

You sum it up pretty well there, fellas.

Murali and Warne are just two incredibly gifted bowlers, and we should feel privileged that not only were they in our era, but that they played at the same time in our era.

Fists of Fury wrote:You sum it up pretty well there, fellas.

Murali and Warne are just two incredibly gifted bowlers, and we should feel privileged that not only were they in our era, but that they played at the same time in our era.

I rated O Reilly above Murali purely because of Bradman's high regard for him.

shankythebiggestengfan wrote:

Fists of Fury wrote:You sum it up pretty well there, fellas.

Murali and Warne are just two incredibly gifted bowlers, and we should feel privileged that not only were they in our era, but that they played at the same time in our era.

I rated O Reilly above Murali purely because of Bradman's high regard for him.

so r u bascially saying whatever bradman says its correct mate?

1) Warne
2) Murali
3) Vettori
4) Kumble
5) Saqlain

6) O'Reilly
7) Mushtaq Ahmed
8) Harbajhan Singh
9) Benaud
10) Underwood


Going on whom I've seen and who sticks in the memory

cricketfan90 wrote:

shankythebiggestengfan wrote:

Fists of Fury wrote:You sum it up pretty well there, fellas.

Murali and Warne are just two incredibly gifted bowlers, and we should feel privileged that not only were they in our era, but that they played at the same time in our era.

I rated O Reilly above Murali purely because of Bradman's high regard for him.

so r u bascially saying whatever bradman says its correct mate?

Not really mate but I have heard that Bradman and O'Reilly never shared a good personal relationship.But inspite of this Bradman that O'Reilly was the greatest bowler he had ever seen so he must have been something special.No one would praise your enemy so highly if he wasnt so good.

i just dont think that we can take that comment to be completely truthful, cos remeber none of us saw o'reilly so we cant really say whether bradman's comments are compeltely accurate

In alphabetical order - probably forgotten someone:

Bedi
Benaud
Gibbs
Laker
Murali
O'Reilly
Qadir
Saqlain
Warne
Verity

LondonTiger wrote:In alphabetical order - probably forgotten someone:

Bedi
Benaud
Gibbs
Laker
Murali
O'Reilly
Qadir
Saqlain
Warne
Verity

W comes before V?

haha lol