• Home
  • Player Stories
  • The Near Perfect Debut When Todd Murphy Had Nagpur At Its Feet With Epic 7 Wicket Haul

The near-perfect debut: When Todd Murphy had Nagpur at its feet with epic 7-wicket haul

Mayank

Todd Murphy will replace Nathan Lyon for the MCG Test vs England [Source: AFP Photos]Todd Murphy will replace Nathan Lyon for the MCG Test vs England [Source: AFP Photos]

Nathan Lyon's hamstring surgery after registering 5 wickets in the Ashes-clinching Test at the Adelaide Oval has once again opened up a window of opportunity for his understudy, Todd Murphy, who is all in readiness to join the Australia camp after he was named in the squad for the fourth Ashes Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Boxing Day.

Having last played a Test for the Aussies back in February at Galle, Murphy is now a frontrunner to feature in both the remaining Tests against the arch-rivals, overtaking Matthew Kuhnemann in the race to replace Lyon.

As he rejoins the Australian Test squad, here's a look back at his memorable debut against India, which had the Nagpur crowd at its feet.

When Murphy outbowled Lyon on debut with a 7-fer

Widely touted as Lyon's long-term successor at the Test level, Murphy got his Test cap in the first Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023 Test in Nagpur, where the pitch was expected to assist the spinners. While India had largely prepared for Lyon's threat, the young Murphy came in as a surprise package and outbowled the senior pro, exhibiting great control and consistency with his lines and lengths and varying his pace to the T.

Captain Rohit Sharma looked class apart on a rather tough track, scoring one of his better hundreds. The finger spinner put in a 47 over shift in the first innings of his Test career and dismissed KL Rahul, caught and bowled, as his first wicket and backed it up by running through the Indian middle order.

Ravichandran Ashwin, who batted at 3, was trapped lbw, followed by the prized dismissals of Cheteshwar Pujara, who tried to attack a loose ball and got caught at short fine leg and the former India skipper Virat Kohli, who looked solid in his short stay but was caught down the leg-side by Alex Carey right after a lunch break.

The Victorian spinner went on to get rid of the set Ravindra Jadeja at 70(185), by dismantling his wickets and got another debutant KS Bharat lbw at 8(10), followed by Mohammed Shami at 37(47) to complete a marathon effort of 7/124 (47) and the Nagpur crowd acknowledged his effort with an ovation, as his family enjoyed it from the stands.

Nonetheless, Jadeja's first innings five-fer was backed up by one from Ashwin, as Australia was crushed by an innings and 132 runs. Since his debut, Murphy has played 6 more Tests, and has 22 scalps to his name. In the current Sheffield Shield season, he has taken 10 wickets in 4 matches, just 2 fewer than Lyon's 12 in the same number of innings, while bowling at a better strike rate.

In the Boxing Day Test, he will be a local player, playing at his home turf and will be expected to exploit the home conditions on his Test comeback.