Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar expressed his regret at not calling Shane Warne the greatest spinner of all time, while talking about his legacy after he passed on Friday.
“In hindsight, that question should not have been asked and I should not have answered as it was not the right time for any comparison or evaluation,” Gavaskar posted on Instagram reacting to criticism of his statement.
“Warne was one of the greatest players to ever grace the game. Rodney Marsh was also one of the best wicketkeepers. May their souls rest in peace,” he added.
Gavaskar said that all he was doing was giving an honest opinion.
“On TV, I was asked by an anchor whether Warne was the greatest spinner and I gave my honest opinion,” he said.
One of the legends of the game, Gavaskar had said that Warne mastered a very difficult art but added that he wasn’t the greatest spinner of all time as his performance in India was “pretty ordinary”, a view that was criticised as ill-timed in some sections of the media Down Under.
Gavaskar had said that he rated the Indian spinners and Sri Lankan Muttiah Muralitharan higher than Warne.
“No, I wouldn’t say that no. For me, the Indian spinners and Muttiah Muralitharan were certainly better than Shane Warne,” Gavaskar said on ‘India Today’.
“Because look at Shane Warne’s record against India. It was pretty ordinary. In India, he got five wickets only once in Nagpur, and that too because Zaheer Khan swung wildly against him to give him a fifer.”
“Because he did not have much success against Indian players who were very good players of spin, I don’t think I would call him the greatest,” Gavaskar said.
“Muttiah Muralitharan with a greater success he had against India, I would rank him over Warne in my book,” he added.
The former India captain was also lavish in his praise for the Australian, saying that he created some magic moments on the field.
“He mastered a craft which is so difficult to master, which is wrist spin. To pick 700-plus wickets like he did in Test cricket plus hundreds more in one-day cricket just tells you how good a bowler he was,” Gavaskar said.
“Finger spin is a lot easier, you have a lot more control over what you want to bowl, but leg spin or wrist spin is very, very tough.
“For him to have bowled the way he did, the way he seemed to create magic, the way he seemed to be able to deliver magic deliveries at will was the reason why he was revered all over the world,” he added.
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