Todd Murphy makes Test debut in Nagpur, snares first wicket on Day One

Australia’s selectors broke a 35-year-long tradition when they handed out the 465th Test cap to a bolter 22-year-old from Victoria.

Todd Murphy has been named as Australia’s 465th male Test cricketer, having only picked up the art of offspin six years ago while “stuffing around” near his hometown of Moama.

The Victorian has seen a rapid rise to the Test squad, with only one first-class match to his name at the start of last summer.

The 22-year-old bamboozled batters around the country in the Sheffield Shield this summer, snaring 14 wickets from just four matches at an average of 17.71, on top of spinning Victoria to victory against New South Wales in a thriller, to catapult himself into the national frame.

And he got his Test career off to a nice start in Nagpur, taking India’s only Day One wicket in the first Test by dismissing KL Rahul caught and bowled for 20 runs, Australia’s only wicket on Thursday night (AEDT).

The offspinner now looms as one of Australia’s best bowling weapons as they look to keep themselves in the fight defending a first innings total of 177 on Friday.

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Todd Murphy of Australia celebrates taking the wicket of KL Rahul of India of India during day one of the First Test. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

Murphy was named as one of four strike spinners in Australia’s 18-man squad for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, but was not expected to play, behind the already-capped Mitchell Swepson and Ashton Agar.

He told media at the time after he bolted into the squad: “I’m not sure they can fit four of us in.

“I am under no illusions of how difficult it might be at times with how well (India) play spin bowling,” he said.

Steve O’Keefe, the last Australian spinner to have any success in India, taking 19 wickets on the 2017 tour at an average of 23.26, said Murphy is “as good an off-spinner as I’ve seen since Nathan Lyon.”

Todd Murphy played alongside subcontinental cult hero Steve O’Keefe this season at the Sydney Sixers. (Photo by Jeremy Ng/Getty Images)

Where O’Keefe, like India’s biggest weapon Axar Patel, is a left-armer that can take advantage of the variation into right-handers, Murphy is simply a right-arm offspinner in the same mould as attack leader Nathan Lyon.

Taking two specialist spinners of the same discipline and handedness is a first for the Australians since Tim May and Peter Taylor almost 35 years ago - Lyon has never played alongside another offspinner in Tests.

However, while Lyon relies on subtlety and consistency to work batters over, which works in Australia with the natural bounce he gets, Murphy’s reliance on variation may be an ace up the sleeves of the tourists.

O’Keefe said Murphy has a “pile of skills” to rely upon.

“The ball comes out of his hand beautifully, he’s been working on his variations,” he said.

Murphy, who plays for St Kilda in grade cricket, waited 346 days between his first and second first-class appearance, kept out of Victoria’s XI by former Test subcontinent specialist Jon Holland.

Todd Murphy has adopted Victoria as his home state, despite being born in the NSW border town of Moama. (Photo by Morgan Hancock/Getty Images)

The conditions of India are not completely foreign to the bespectacled offspinner, having been sent alongside a group of emerging spinners by Cricket Australia to Chennai’s MRF Academy on top of being selected in the Australia A squad to tour Asia last year.

With the state of the pitch reportedly being prepared in Nagpur for the first Test, the Australians have had their selection hand forced by India’s ground staff on top of their populated casualty ward.

According to SEN’s Bharat Sundaresan, the ground staff have watered the entire centre of the surface, but the area on a good length for left handers was left to parch in the brutal Maharashtrian heat, and wasn’t rolled either.

Interesting treatment of the pitch in Nagpur. The groundstaff watered the entire centre of the surface & only the length areas outside the left-hander’s leg stump & then rolled only the centre, stopping short every time they got to the good length areas at both ends #IndvAuspic.twitter.com/Myr2ZblqCg

— Bharat Sundaresan (@beastieboy07) February 7, 2023

With Australia’s batting unit littered with left-handers, excluding Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne, India have looked to attack them as hard as possible with the preparation of the wicket, knowing that their own batting line-up consists entirely of right-handers that won’t be affected by the contrived rough.

Pace bowlers Mitchell Starc, Cameron Green and Josh Hazlewood have all been ruled out of the first Test with injury.