5 Greatest spinners of all time

2. Muttiah Muralitharan:

Muttiah Muralidharan

Muralitharan has to be one of cricket’s most controversial and talented characters. His record of taking 800 wickets in 133 Test matches and 534 wickets in 350 ODIs is unlikely to be surpassed ever.

“Murali”, as he was popularly known as, was a Sri Lankan off-spinner, but primarily used his wrists to turn the ball. He had exceptional control on line and length aside from the fact that he was able to generate prodigious turn.

Murali did take more than 150 Test wickets against minnows Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, but one can not deny the fact that he mesmerized England in their back-yard and won many Test matches for Sri Lanka on his home soil. His best bowling figures were 9/51 against England and had a bowling average of 22.72 in Test matches.

Murali took an incredible 67 5-wicket hauls in his Test career. He also played in 4 World Cups for Sri Lanka and was part of the 1996 World Cup winning team. He had an enviable “doosra” or the wrong one, which flummoxed the batsmen and was especially lethal against the right-handed ones.

Murali's bowling action was questioned by the Australian umpires, but he came back strongly to make some changes in it and became successful again. He took 1374 wickets in his first-class career.