It was almost as if all the belief was sipping away for the mighty Australian team when a 22-year-old off-spinner Todd Murphy turned things around for the visitors with a spell of 5/82 on Day 2. He consistently hit the right spots with the right pace, and a bit of luck followed the young man.
Day 1 of the first test of the Border-Gavaskar series saw Murphy getting his debut cap for the Kangaroos alongside Suryakumar Yadav and KS Bharat of India. And as Murphy’s family cheered from the sidelines, the debutant bagged the first wicket of his career achieving a first to record a remarkable feat.
A failed footballer, medium pace hater
Indian Cricket Team was in a solid position at 77-1 at the end of Day 1. Murphy then decided to showcase his off-spin magic. Having already dismissed KL Rahul the previous day, he knocked the Indian middle order scrapping the first four wickets starting with night-watchman Ravichandran Ashwin followed by Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, and finally KS Bharat by a DRS decision.
Murphy became only the 5th Aussie star to take a fifer in his first international appearance, following the likes of Scott Boland, Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins, and Nathan Lyon. The Sydney Sixers bowler who is considered Lyon’s heir, has also played football locally scoring over a 100 goals.
But born to a cricketer father, who played alongside Shane Warne in his days Murphy found his eventually calling on the 22 yard as a pacer and had it not been his disliking towards medium pace bowling, this day wouldn’t have come for the Murphy family. The shrewd off-spinner became the 1st off-spinner to took a 5 wicket haul on debut since 1882.
Why not Travis Head?
While Todd Murphy’s selection in the XI may have paid dividends for Australia, it was the absence of the Aussies most in from batter Travis Head that left everybody baffled. Thee world no.4 Test batter, Head could bring in a few good overs of spin to the side.
Combined with Lyon and Murphy, the Australian spin department with Travis in it may have just provided what the visitors needed. He had provided breakthroughs to the team in Pakistan & Sri Lanka Test tours. Add his batting records this summer ( Avg. 75, Strike Rate 97.58), the decision is worth raising a few questions.