Bumrah Third, Murali Sixth: How a Podcast Ranking Rewrites Cricket's Memory

There is no stadium roar inside a podcast studio. There is no sound of a million people breathing together. There is only the voice of two former and current stars, a table, and a sheet of paper with ten names arranged on it. On the 'For the Love of Cricket' podcast, when Jos Buttler and Stuart Broad read out their top ten bowlers of the twenty-first century, one number cut through the air: Jasprit Bumrah — at number three. Just below him, at number six, Muttiah Muralitharan. One has 511 career wickets, the other 1,347. Yet one sits far above the other on the ladder. This is where the question is born — are we actually counting wickets, or counting memory?

I heard this list from a small cafe in Barcelona, where highlights played on the TV and the podcast ran on my phone at the same time. My tea went cold. Because when that number three and number six sit side by side, something strange becomes clear — this is not a list of the field, it is a list of memory. And a list of memory is not always honest.

Context

We need to understand the nature of this list. It merges Test, ODI and T20 cricket into one ranking. That is the first problem. What matters in Tests differs from what matters in T20. The patience of a spinner bowling forty overs and the yorker of a death-over specialist — put them on the same scale and the weight never comes out exact.

The list runs roughly like this: Shane Warne, James Anderson, Jasprit Bumrah, Glenn McGrath, Pat Cummins, Muttiah Muralitharan, Dale Steyn, Kagiso Rabada, Shaun Pollock and Mitchell Starc. Notice: four Australians, three South Africans, one Englishman, one Sri Lankan and one Indian. This distribution itself tells a story — who holds the bowling power of the twenty-first century, and who does not.

But what makes the list genuinely contentious is its format-blindness. Bumrah is still playing. Anderson has retired. Murali has retired. Warne is gone. Ranking a moving career beside a completed one means measuring two kinds of time with one ruler. Is that unfair? Yes. But cricket commentators do it all the time.

Another thing worth noticing about the context — this is not an ICC ranking. It is the personal opinion of two players. Buttler and Broad are both cricketers of this generation. Broad has only just retired. Which means those they have played against, those they have shared a dressing room with, will carry a special pull. This pull can be called 'experience bias'.

Core Analysis

Now to the real question. Why is Bumrah at number three? Because of volume? No — because of peak.

Bumrah's career wickets stand at 511 in 243 matches. Of these, five-wicket hauls number 18. For a pacer, 18 five-fors in around 50 Tests means something — that he can do the match-winning work regularly. This density is Bumrah's true weapon. He has not built mountains of wickets, but what he has built is made of sharp stone.

I believe this list placed Bumrah third because of his cross-format peak quality, not his volume. Player of the Tournament at the 2026 T20 World Cup. Test success away from home. Taking wickets as a pacer in India's spin-friendly conditions — historically the hardest task for Indian pacers. Very few pacers have been born who can do all three at once.

One thing must be added here. When I write about football, I always look at one thing — a player's value is not the sum of his career, but the weight of his brightest moment. The day I covered Messi's 500th goal, I understood — number and meaning are not the same thing. The same is true of Bumrah. 511 wickets looks small beside Murali's 1,347. But 18 five-fors and a T20 World Cup Player of the Tournament medal testify that his peak stayed high for a long stretch.

But how long does a peak last? This is where I want to pause. Because the list has entirely avoided one thing — Bumrah's injury history. A pacer's career bends after a certain age. Bumrah is now in his thirties. His history of back stress fractures is public knowledge. This risk is absent from the list. The list counted only success, not the body's fragility. And I have said again and again — demanding that a player 'prove himself' is cruel. If instead we respect the limits of his body, perhaps we will see many more Bumrahs.

Now to comparison. Pat Cummins has 535 wickets and sits fifth. Bumrah has 511 and sits third. Shaun Pollock has 823 and sits ninth. This arrangement makes it clear — the list is not a wicket order. It is an order of impact, trophy leadership and the weight of the moment. If Cummins sits below Bumrah despite more wickets, then the judges valued Bumrah's yorker sharpness and death-over calm above Cummins's leadership.

There is a silent truth here. Cricket's memory always remembers the batsman, forgets the bowler. We memorise a 264-run innings in an ODI, but we do not remember a five-wicket spell. This list, however flawed, is at least speaking the names of bowlers. That is a small consolation.

Answering the Hook: Murali at Six

Now to the biggest shock. Muttiah Muralitharan — 1,347 wickets, the highest of all time. He is sixth. A pacer with 511 wickets is third. There are two possible explanations. One, the list weighted memory and recency. Two, the list structurally undervalued spin.

I think both are true. Buttler and Broad carry an emotional pull toward those they have played with. Bumrah is of this generation. Murali is of the last. And the greatness of the last generation has a problem — it stays on paper, it is not seen with the eyes. To a generation that never watched Murali bowl, he is a number. To a generation that watched Bumrah live, he is a feeling.

But there is an injustice here that cannot escape the eye. Murali's career was in restricted conditions, under the shadow of a contested action, and for a small island nation. Yet he took 1,347 wickets. If that number does not rise to third, what does a number mean? Either the list does not value numbers, or the number is wrong.

I want to be clear here. I do not want Murali at three — I want the list to reveal its criterion. If the criterion is volume, Murali is at the top. If the criterion is peak, Bumrah can be third. But the criterion is written nowhere. And without a criterion, a list becomes not a decision but an opinion.

The Contrarian Side

The weakest spot of this list is its treatment of spin. Read the list of the absent — Anil Kumble (619 Test wickets), Ravichandran Ashwin (500+) and Nathan Lyon (500+). All three are towering figures in Test history. They are missing. Yet Kagiso Rabada is present, with fewer career wickets than Kumble. Whether this is a spin bias is debatable. But this is clear — the list has not given enough respect to Test cricket's spin legacy.

I have a personal observation here. I have sat in grounds many times and seen that fans never sing a spinner's name, but when a spinner fools a batsman, the gallery lets out a collective breath — a silent wonder. Silence in the stands is not silence; it is a held breath. This list did not value that breath.

Another big absence — Pakistan. Pakistan's pace tradition is legendary in world cricket. Yet not a single Pakistani is on the list. Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis — these names left their mark in Tests and ODIs in the first decade of the century. Excluding them means the list is not politically neutral. It is a mark of cricket's geography.

One more thing everyone will notice — Stuart Broad himself made the list, and his long-time new-ball partner James Anderson is second, above McGrath and Murali. This cannot be called outright conflict of interest, because Anderson truly is a great bowler — 991 wickets. But when the list-maker is himself part of that relationship, the viewer will naturally ask. This is the crisis of the list — who is the judge, and why.

The Story of the Memory-Structure

Now I want to go to a bigger picture. I have watched cricket in stadiums with empty seats — that time in 2026, when Son Moix had zero spectators and artificial crowd noise played at 75 decibels. That day I understood, cricket does not run on ball and bat alone. Cricket runs on memory, on roar, on presence. When the seats emptied, seventeen voices became the whole stadium.

This list is exactly that kind of thing. It did not happen on the field, it happened in the room of memory. And the door of the room of memory is not always open — who enters, who stays outside, is a question of power. Whoever makes the list decides who is memorable and who is forgotten. Bumrah third, Murali sixth — this is not just a cricket debate, it is a politics of memory.

If I look at this list as a marketed product, another layer opens. Placing Bumrah above McGrath and Murali — that sentence is a gold mine in India's media market. India drives a huge share of global cricket revenue. Giving an Indian pacer the 'all-time great' tag means creating a new hero before a billion eyes. This list is bigger than sport — it is an engagement machine.

And here caution is needed. I am not belittling former players' podcasts. But it is good to remember, making a list is a source of income. The more the debate, the more the listeners. Placing Murali sixth, Bumrah third — if this order were entirely lukewarm, no one would listen. So it is not abnormal to suspect the controversy is deliberate.

Contrarian Angle: What We Do Not Count

Now I want to see it from the reverse side. Everyone says Bumrah's position is excessive. But no one says — is placing Murali sixth an injustice to Murali, or is this very debate Murali's greatest honour? Because the name that sits in the middle of a list and becomes the centre of discussion is the one who actually wins. A number can be held back, attention cannot.

And one thing no one is counting — every pacer's career has a hidden cost. Behind each of Bumrah's yorkers is a back. Behind each five-for is a night when he slept with ice applied. This cost no one counts, because it is not shown on television. The list counts only the fruit, not the root.

There is another silence — the stories of those dropped from the list. Southee, Lyon, Ashwin, Kumble — without these names the bowling history of the twenty-first century is incomplete. But no headline is made about those left out. Because memory always celebrates presence and forgets absence. This is the cruel rule of memory.

Takeaway

Finally, let me leave a question. If such a list is made again ten years from now, who will be at the top? If Bumrah stays fit, he rises higher. And if he does not? Then this list will be read as a document of excessive optimism. Murali will remain sixth, because a number never grows.

So to me the real decision is not the list's, but ours. Do we want a list that worships the peak, or a list that also gives room to the body's limits, the patience of history and the absent voices? The list that can raise this question is the best list. The rest is only noise — and when the stadium empties, that too falls silent.