If Australia make a good fist of their latest mission to India, the series may come to a climactic fourth Test in Ahmedabad.
The only two recent Tests at the vast Narendra Modi Stadium were staged back-to-back in March in the COVID year of 2021. India beat England by wide margins in both, their spinners taking 37 of England’s 40 wickets.
Todd Murphy is in the touring party to India.Credit:Brook Mitchell
In the first, England finger-spinners Jack Leach and Joe Root took nine wickets in India’s first innings and opened the bowling in the short second dig. After winning the first Test of that series, England faded to lose 3-1.
The Australian selectors didn’t have to use their imaginations to picture where Australia might end up on this tour. They have provisioned the team accordingly. Four spinners amounts nearly to a quorum. Australia won’t play all four in any Test, but the day and pitch might come where they consider three.
In any case, they will need at least two up and ready to tweak and twirl at all times. The first Test is in Nagpur, where off-spinner Jason Krejza memorably took 12/358 on debut in 2008. It wasn’t as if he was some kind of Warne-like conjurer; he only took one more Test wicket.
The second is in Delhi, where when Australia last visited in 2013, India’s spinners took 17 wickets, Nathan Lyon took nine and Glenn Maxwell three for Australia, and opened the bowling together in the second innings. It didn’t help; they lost.
Todd Murphy in action for Victoria.Credit:Getty Images
The third is in Dharamsala, halfway up the Himalayas. In the only previous Test played there in 2017, Indian spinners took 12 wickets and Lyon five for Australia, unavailingly. Australia began that series with a thumping win in Pune, but by the end were drained and lost 2-1.
This is the thing about visiting India. It is wondrous and wearying in equal measure. The selectors have loaded up as if for an expedition: eight batsmen, six seamers, four spinners and a wicketkeeper (that’s not a miscount; Cameron Green counts for two), plenty of water and feed for the horses.
If anything, it is overloaded. A squad of 18 means seven are not playing at any given time, with no other cricket as a release. That’s a lot of idle hands. Uncapped off-spinner Todd Murphy might be happy simply to be along for the ride, but not everyone will. History teaches that 16 fit comfortably together on a bus. A sub, if needed, is only one travelling day away.
The Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.Credit:AP
The risk is collateral damage. Marcus Harris understudied the Test team all summer, but did not play one. He went six weeks without a hit in a match and when returning to the Big Bash League this week looked like a man who had not had a hit for six weeks. Dropped from the squad for India, he deserves sympathy.
The selectors will see numbers as necessary cover. They will need batsmen who can play spin, and have them. Peter Handscomb has earned another chance. They will need exponents of reverse swing, and have them. And, of course, they will need spinners of all sorts.
It is something of an Australian tradition to take an uncapped spinner to India. Think Brad Hogg, Nathan Hauritz, Krejza, Gavin Robertson and most recently Mitch Swepson. None became stars, but all played roles.
Nathan Lyon in India in 2017.Credit:AP
Now it is Murphy’s turn, and what a time to take it. The search is on in earnest for a successor to Lyon, and even if Murphy doesn’t get a Test this time, he will compress years of experience and insight into a month. He’ll be even wider-eyed than his glasses make him look. He’s probably packed his bags already.
Two finger-spinners, two wrist. Two to turn it into the right-hander, two away. If you were to quibble, it would be about style. India’s batting is pretty much all right-handed, so another leg-spinner must have exercised the selectors’ minds. That makes Adam Zampa unlucky – again. He’s made his own pigeonhole and he’s stuck in it.
That said, India is the domain and natural habitat of the finger-spinner, not leg. Shane Warne averaged a mortal 43 there.
This is all poking at soft spots in the interests of quality control. Overall, this is a squad to inspire hope. It is stronger in batting than in 2017 – when the batting was Steve Smith and sundries – and deeper in bowling, and is bouncing out of rampant home summer.
India in India is never less than formidable, but right now gives off the merest scent of susceptibility. It’s going to be an absorbing series.
Incidentally, the Ahmedabad stadium seats 132,000. With any luck, they’ll need them all.
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