Muttiah Muralitharan rates Ashwin as the best Test spinner currently: Former Sri Lanka off-spinner and living legend Muttiah Muralitharan on Tuesday hailed India”s Ravichandran Ashwin as the best in the business among the current breed of spinners. Arguably, Muralitharan was the greatest off-spinner cricket has ever seen. The magician from Sri Lanka was a big match winner for his team. He ended up his career with 800 Test, 534 ODI and 13 T20I wickets. This compliment has to be the biggest achievement so far for Ashwin, the canny offie for the Men in Blue. Both of them played together for CSK in the IPL.

“Ashwin, I think, is on the top at the moment as the best current Test spinner,” Muttiah Muralitharan was quoted as saying by Cricket Australia”s (CA) website.

“Lyon is a very good bowler, a very good off-spinner. He has proven himself in Test cricket and has taken a lot of wickets for Australia. He bowls in different conditions (in Australia) which are not much helpful for spin but on the turning wickets he has taken some wickets.”

The 44-year-old canny offie, who had worked with the Aussies as a bowling consultant in 2014, said the Kangaroos start as favourites when they tour Sri Lanka for the three-match Test series starting from July last. He also hailed the World Champions as the favourites over the home team.

“Australia is favourite at the moment because they have played good cricket in the recent past. Sri Lanka on other hand is struggling a bit in all forms of the game so Australia will have an edge over Sri Lanka,” he said.

“They have a chance of winning the series because the Sri Lankan side is very inexperienced as lot of players retired recently and they are rebuilding the side so they won”t be strong enough,” he added.

“Therefore, Australia I think will have a good chance of winning the series. If they use the conditions properly and play their spinners well they definitely have a chance,” he concluded.