Expert Blog

Player of the Decade: Ponting or Muralitharan?

The smiling assassin from Sri Lanka as the Player of the Decade instead of the Aussie captain? Our expert has some interesting statistics to offer to the debate.

Ricky Ponting was voted Player of the Decade by a whopping margin by a jury of cricket experts. The combined Test and One-Day International numbers reveal Ponting was consistently better than other batsmen over the past ten years - no real debate that he was Batsman of the Decade. However, one could make the case for Muttiah Muarlitharan having featured higher in the voting - in Tests, he picked up 565 wickets at an average of 20.97 (the next highest was Makhaya Ntini with 380 wickets at 28.64). In ODIs, Murali again topped the charts with 335 wickets at an average of 20.55 and an economy rate of just 3.7! Again, no one else comes close to matching him on all dimensions. Brett Lee was the next highest wicket-taker with 324 but he went at 4.71 runs per over. Tables 1 through 4 highlight the comparisons of Ponting and Muralitharan against their closest competitors in Tests and ODIs for the 2000s.
   

Table 1: Top run-getters in Tests in the 2000s

Table 2: Top wicket-takers in Tests in the 2000s

Table 3: Top run-getters in ODIs in the 2000s

Table 4: Top wicket-takers in ODIs in the 2000s

A look at table 1 tells you Ponting had nearly a 100 more runs than Jacques Kallis, though the South African did have the higher average. Table 2 tells you Murali had no equal in any statistical category. Heck, he had nearly 200 more wickets than Ntini, and he had more fifers than Warne and Kumble combined! Further, if you look at how many times a bowler has picked up ten wickets in a match, Ntini, Warne, Kumble and Harbhajan together account for 20. Murali - he’s got 20 all by himself!

As for ODIs, table 3 tells you Tendulkar had a better average and strike rate than Ponting in the 2000s. Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Michael Hussey also fared better than Ponting in both categories for the 2000s, albeit with fewer matches (Dhoni averaged 50.82 at a strike rate of 89.59, Hussey averaged 54.07 at 87.15). Murali was unrivalled on the average numbers by the remaining top 5 wicket-takers. His only real competition was Glenn McGrath, who picked up 234 wickets at an average of 20.28 (slightly better than Murali) and an economy rate of 3.78 (only a few hundredths behind the Sri Lankan). Overall, closer competition in the ODI category for Ponting and Murali, but the numbers say Murali was more dominant than Ponting.

Then there’s the home-away argument that says Murali is not as effective away from home. While this is true of Murali, it is true of most players including Ponting. Murali’s bowling average at home was 17.99 and away was 26.36 - that’s still better than Kumble, Harbhajan and Ntini’s combined home and away numbers. Ponting’s batting average was 65.03 at home and 49.77 away for the 2000s, so even he performed significantly better on home conditions.

Finally, Ponting must be credited for handling the responsibility of captaincy and being a part of two World Cup triumphs. Yet, the counter to that is that Murali didn’t benefit from having a truckload of world class teammates all the time - it’s unfair to simply equate overall team performance with individual player performance.

In the end, the numbers indicate that Muralitharan should have figured a lot higher in the discussion for Player of the Decade, at the very least. He was unquestionably the bowler of the decade (though the voting saw him just about edge out McGrath by 3 points) and he dominated his peers by a much greater extent than Ponting did with his competitors. Overall, Muttiah Muralitharan can rightfully feel aggrieved about not winning the Player of the Decade. But worrying about awards is not the smiling assassin’s style; he’ll just keep on playing and keep on taking wickets!