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Murphy's law: A debut to remember
The 22-year-old isn’t the first debutant off-spinner to shine in India but he will have to find a way to keep this going.
The 22-year-old Todd Murphy had bowled around 280 overs in first-class cricket before he was handed his Baggy Green cap at Nagpur. If one considers his first innings workload, he might as well end up bowling more in just this series itself. It's a huge step-up buy so far, the bespectacled off-spinner has risen to the challenge.
He marked his Test debut with a stellar 5/82 showing, out-bowling his senior pro-Nathan Lyon, and almost single-handedly kept Australia within touching distance before a late partnership pushed the visitors into a tough spot.
Murphy, of course, isn’t the first debutant off-spinner to shine in India. Jason Krejza did it 14 years ago right here at Nagpur. After his 12-wicket dream start, he went on to play only one more Test though. Falling prey to little-known spinners has been a constant Indian shortcoming. Australian left-arm spinner Steve O’Keefe had shocked India with a 12-wicket haul too in 2017 on a turning Pune track. England's Dom Bess did it recently as well. But the common thread between all these names is that the series didn't end too kindly for them.
The challenge before Murphy will be to not become an addition to this list of one-match wonders.
Picked as the second off-spinner in the eleven for his superior skill sets over Ashton Agar’s left-arm spin and Mitchell Swepson’s leg-spin, Murphy had to constantly bowl round the wicket to India’s right-handers to exploit the rough.
It is not the preferred line of attack for an off-spinner but it brought lbw into play and allowed the off-spinner to attack the stumps more directly. But as India’s batters play him more, his variety will be tested.
His father Jamie, who played cricket with Shane Warne at St Kilda, thinks there are a lot of ‘Warnie traits’ in him. "That never-say-die attitude, that 'we can win from anywhere' attitude. He (Todd) is 'out there' a little bit at times as well,” Jamie told cricket.com.au a day before the game.
But Murphy chose to remain more down to earth.
“Yeah, I shook him (father), I don’t think I am anything similar to Warnie,” said Murphy on Friday. “Yeah, to have them (parents) here is special. It was a pretty hectic couple of days to try and get them across. They’ve been a part of this journey the whole way for me. They’re enjoying themselves.”
“It’s been a pretty special couple of days, and to top it off with a five-wicket haul on debut, more than I could have ever hoped for. It’s something I will look back on for the rest of my life,” he added.
The prospect of a month-long on-the-job learning against some of the best batters of spin is on the cards but for now, things couldn’t have been sunnier for the youngster from Warne’s neck of the woods.
