SYDNEY: The legendary Muttiah Muralitharan only sees Ravichandran Ashwin achieving the 700-800 wicket mark among the current crop of spinners and feels Nathan Lyon, who plays his 100th Test from Friday, “may be not good enough to reach that far”.
Muralitharan’s stupendous record of 800 Test wickets remains very much intact with Shane Warne (708) and Anil Kumble (619) rounding up the top-three wicket-takers in the longest format.
“Ashwin has a chance because he is a great bowler. Other than that, I don’t think any younger bowler coming in will go to 800. Maybe Nathan Lyon is not good enough to reach it. He is close to 400 (396) but he has had to play many, many matches to get there,” Muralitharan was quoted as saying in a Michael Vaughan column for the London-based Telegraph.
Muralitharan’s stupendous record of 800 Test wickets remains very much intact with Shane Warne (708) and Anil Kumble (619) rounding up the top-three wicket-takers in the longest format.
“Ashwin has a chance because he is a great bowler. Other than that, I don’t think any younger bowler coming in will go to 800. Maybe Nathan Lyon is not good enough to reach it. He is close to 400 (396) but he has had to play many, many matches to get there,” Muralitharan was quoted as saying in a Michael Vaughan column for the London-based Telegraph.
Ashwin has 377 wickets in 74 Tests at an average of 25.53 while Lyon, among the best Australian spinners of all-time, averages 31.98 in 99 Tests. He is four shy of the 400-wicket mark.
Leaving aside Ashwin and…