Todd Murphy is agonisingly close to making his Test debut, but the young off-spinner will have to rely on Australia scrapping a 35-year tradition to become the country’s 465th men’s Test cricketer.
Following a successful summer with Victoria in the Sheffield Shield, Murphy earned a surprise call-up to Australia’s Test squad for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, joining spinners Nathan Lyon, Ashton Agar and Mitchell Swepson on the tour.
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National selectors may be reluctant to give Murphy a baggy green in India because he bowls off-spin like Test stalwart Lyon, instead favouring tweakers who turn the ball away from right-handed batters. Travis Head’s part-time off-spin adds an extra barrier to Murphy’s selection.
However, Australian Test captain Pat Cummins emphasised that Murphy was still a strong chance of making his international debut in India, where we could come up against the likes of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.
“The reason why he’s here is because he’s a really good spin bowler,” Cummins told foxsports.com.au. “All offers are on the table to partner Gaz if we go with two spinners.
“I’ve only seen a little bit of Todd. Obviously he’s done really well in Shield cricket, and the guys that have faced him have been really impressed with not just his stock ball, but also his variations. Mixing up the pace, (he) flights it slightly differently to what Nathan does.”
Murphy, who only started bowling off-spin six years ago, boasts a first-class record of 29 wickets at 25.20 from seven matches. The spectacled 22-year-old was selected for last year’s Australia A tour of Sri Lanka, taking 4-52 against the locals in Hambantota.
To fast-track his development, Cricket Australia sent Murphy and a group of emerging spinners to Chennai‘s MRF Academy to refine their craft in the subcontinent’s unique conditions.
“He‘s as good an off-spinner as I’ve seen since Nathan Lyon,” Sydney Sixers teammate Steve O’Keefe told foxsports.com.au earlier this summer.
“The ball comes out of his hand beautifully, he‘s been working on his variations. He’s going to be a star for the Sixers going forward, and also for the Australian cricket team when the time comes.
“Every year, he just seems to get a little bit better and add to that pile of new skills.”
However, it has been almost 35 years since Australia selected two specialist off-spinners for a Test match, with Tim May and Peter Taylor playing together during the 1988 tour of Pakistan. Lyon, who will make his 116th Test appearance this week, has never played alongside another specialist off-spinner in Australian whites.
Finger injuries to Mitchell Starc and Cameron Green make it difficult to justify picking Murphy for the first Test in Nagpur – the left-handed Starc won’t be creating footmarks outside the right-handed batter’s off stump, while Green’s inability to bowl ruins any chance of selecting three strike spinners.
Meanwhile, India’s top four is expected to be exclusively right-handers, who traditionally prefer facing spinners who turn the ball into their pads rather than any from the outside edge.
But as pointed out by ESPNcricinfo, Murphy has found success against right-handed batters at first-class level, averaging 26.7 with the bat. In contrast, Agar has averaged 75.9 bowling to right-handers in first-class cricket since the 2019/20 season with a strike rate of 171.5.
“It’s going to come down to pitch conditions and what they feel their best combinations are … (but) there‘s no reason you couldn’t play two right-arm off-spinners over there if conditions suited,” Murphy told cricket.com.au.
“I‘m not really sure what that looks like for me at the start of the tour, but I hope there’s conversations over there that I am in the mix.
“It‘s about putting my best foot forward. If they do want to go that way I’m confident me and Nath could do a job together.”
Over the past 12 months, Murphy has been working on varying his stock ball through the release angle, delivery speed and seam position, providing a point of contrast to Lyon.
“One of Murph‘s real strengths is his subtle variations while maintaining his accuracy,” Sydney Sixers assistant coach Cameron White told foxsports.com.au earlier this summer.
“His ability to bowl long spells with those couple of little variations, that will hold him in good stead … he rarely bowls a bad ball.
“Those conditions (in India) will suit him.”
If selected, Murphy wouldn’t be the first off-spinner to make his Test debut in Asia with minimal first-class experience behind him – Lyon was similarly plucked from obscurity ahead of the 2011 Sri Lanka tour, since taking 460 Test wickets.
But of course, there are several Australian tweakers who have struggled in the subcontinent over the past couple of decades; Cameron White, Nathan Hauritz, Xavier Doherty and Jon Holland to name a few. Murphy runs the risk of joining an unwanted list of spinners trialled in Asia before being discarded.
The first Test between India and Australia gets underway at Nagpur’s Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium on Thursday, with the first ball scheduled for 3pm AEDT.
