Top 10 spinners of all time in Test cricket

Spin bowling is, without doubt, one of the craftiest and most difficult aspects of the game of cricket. A spin bowler has to rely on turn, flight, bounce and dip in order to get the better of high quality batsmen. Considering the difficulty involved in mastering the art, it is no surprise that most spin bowlers are at their best when they are in their early 30s.There have been a number of world-class spinners to have played Test cricket over its 137-year-old history; therefore, to pick just ten from a vast range of choices is extremely difficult. Nonetheless, here are my top ten spinners of all-time:

#10 Saqlain Mushtaq

Saqlain Mushtaq had a critical role to play in reviving the art of off-spin bowling. With flat pitches and bigger bats engulfing the game, off-spin was under severe threat of being marginalized in the late 1990s. But Mushtaq ensured that wasn’t the case by being the first bowler to introduce the doosra to international cricket.

While his early years as an international cricketer were tremendous, befuddling one and all with his doosra, he did taper off with time as batsmen started getting used to his variations. He finished his Test career with 208 wickets from 49 Tests, having played his last Test at the age of 28.

#9 Abdul Qadir

Abdul Qadir is probably the second greatest leg-spinner ever, only inferior to the great Shane Warne. He took 236 wickets in 67 Test matches and has the best figures for a Pakistan bowler in Test cricket: 9/56 against England in 1987. He had a bag of tricks up his sleeve, a well-disguised googly being the most lethal of them all, with which he wreaked havoc on supportive wickets.

#8 Bishan Bedi

Bishan Bedi is perhaps the most classical left-arm spinner you are likely to see. Apart from possessing a beautiful smooth action, he also had the bravery to toss the ball up time and again, in the hope of deceiving batsmen in the air and succeeded in it, as well. His record of 266 wickets in 67 Tests is very good, but you can’t help but feel that he would’ve picked way many more wickets had he played in a stronger Indian team than that of the 1960s and 70s.

#7 Erapalli Prasanna

While 189 wickets in 49 Tests at an average of 30.88 isn’t all that revealing of his class, off-spinner Prasanna, a part of the famous spin quartet for India in the 1960s and 70s, was the best of the lot according to many knowledgeable observers, no mean feat when the other three of that pack are Bishan Singh Bedi, BS Chandrasekhar and S Venkataraghavan.

What made him stand out from other spinners was his ability to seemingly have the ball on a string; batsmen would step out of their crease in order to reach the pitch of the ball and smother the spin, only to fall short more often than not.

#6 Lance Gibbs

Lance Gibbs was only the second bowler and the first spinner to reach 300 Test wickets. The off-spinner played 79 Tests in a career that lasted 18 years, a tribute to his skill and longevity. He had remarkable accuracy and the ability to bowl long spells, which held him in good stead for the rigours of the longer format of the game. His best performance came against Indians, who are good players of spin bowling, at Barbados in 1962, when he bowled a staggering 53.5 overs and took 8 wickets for just 38 runs.

#5 Jim Laker

Jim Laker will forever be remembered for the Old Trafford Test match against Australia in 1956, where he took 9/37 in the first innings and 10/53 in the second. He was a mighty fine bowler without doubt, contributing in a number of Test match victories for England. The right-arm offbreak bowler ended his career in 1959, against Australia, finishing off a glorious 11-year career with 193 wickets from 46 Tests.

#4 Derek Underwood

Derek Underwood was more of a slow-medium bowler rather than a spinner and generally cut the ball rather than spun it. While his methods were different to that of a conventional spinner, he was extremely effective. He was nicknamed ‘Deadly’ by his Kent team-mates due to the havoc he caused on wet pitches. Although Underwood benefitted by playing in the era of uncovered pitches, he wasn’t too bad on good wickets, either, as his 297 wickets in 86 Tests show.

#3 Anil Kumble

Anil Kumble is the classic case of a bowler making the most of his abilities. While he wasn’t a big turner of the ball, he used his accuracy coupled with the bounce that he extracted due to his height, to great effect. The Karnataka bowler, popularly referred to as ‘Jumbo’, is still the leading wicket-taker for India in Tests, with 619 wickets from 132 Test matches. He was also just the 2nd bowler, after Jim Laker, to take all 10 wickets in an innings in Test cricket, with his unique feat of 10/74 being achieved against Pakistan in 1999.

#2 Muttiah Muralitharan

Muttiah Muralitharan, with a mind-boggling 800 Test wickets from a mere 133 matches, was quite simply, in the nicest way possible, a freak. While Saqlain Mushtaq invented the doosra, the ball that turns the other way in contrast to the conventional off-break, it would be fair to say that Murali perfected it and went on to confound numerous batsmen with the delivery.

While it is true that his unique ability of being able to create extra spin with his right shoulder and wrist gave him a huge advantage over other bowers, he still had to be good enough to be able to bowl at the international level.

#1 Shane Warne

The period during the 1970s and 80s was the era of fast bowlers, with the likes of Dennis Lillee, Michael Holding and Malcolm Marshall, just to name a few, causing havoc for batsmen around the world and, thereby, inspiring young kids to bowl fast.

Shane Warne’s emergence in the early 1990s changed that narrative and made spin bowling fashionable once again. He started off his Test career poorly but grew over time to become the best spinner, I believe, to have played the game. He perplexed many batsmen with his flight and guile throughout his time in the game and was also one of the major factors in Australia dominating the cricketing landscape. Apart from his palpable skills with the ball, he also had one of the sharpest cricketing brains, fetching him a colossal 708 Test wickets from 145 Tests.