Just about nine months ago, after being unable to make his State side, a then 21-year-old was getting ready to play Club cricket in Darwin. Cut to the present, and here he is at Jamtha, playing in the league of the big boys and strangling the legendary Virat Kohli down leg.
On Friday, perhaps more than the joy of snapping up five wickets on his Test debut against India, Australia’s Todd Murphy would have been overawed by the occasion that is the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Maybe back in the room of a luxury hotel in Nagpur, Murf – as they now call him in the dressing room – from the small river town of Moama would still be pinching himself to check if all of this is a dream.
Ask him and he would say, “There’s the excitement about just being out there and trying to embrace it and enjoy it. And getting involved. These sort of guys are some of the best players in the world. That’s exciting and I’ve sort of got nothing to lose. So, I just went out there and tried to really enjoy it and compete as hard as I can. And thankfully, that has a few rewards. So yeah, I didn’t try and get too overawed by it.”
A visibly half-elated, half-scared Murphy had just entered the press conference room after the end of second day’s play. The Australian media manager politely reminded everybody in attendance to be kind to Murphy who was also here for his maiden presser. But the young offie handled the reporters too with elan.
“It’s been a pretty special couple of days and I suppose to top the day off with a fifer is more than I could ever hope for. It’s gonna be something that I’ll look back on the rest of my life and be really proud of,” Murphy (22 years, 87 days old), who had just broken a 141-year-old record to become the youngest Australian spinner to take a fifer on debut, said. The previous mark was held by George Palmer (22 years, 360 days).
By his admission, it has been a “quick, quick progress” for him and he is still trying to come to terms with it. The biggest turning point, he says, was a trip to Sri Lanka with the Australia A team in 2022. “Being on that ‘A’ tour… had a little bit of success over there and I think that probably gave me the confidence that I needed, going back to Australia; that I was good enough to keep mixing it with First Class cricketers. I think that trip away, being around some of the guys that have played Test cricket was about sort of observing everything. You can test it in the nets and then evolve. I think I took a lot of confidence out of that, reflected and trusted myself a bit more. I thought what I’ve got can be good enough so I believed in that.”
Murphy was impressed with what he has seen in India, thus far, as well. “I think that the Indian guys, they use their hands really well. They get their hands out in front of their pads and you’ve got a lot of scoring options too, so, always a really difficult challenge there. And yeah, it was quite tough.”
Murphy, who went from being a medium-pacer to spinner, prised out KL Rahul, Ravichandran Ashwin, Cheteshwar Pujara and Srikar Bharat besides Kohli. However, it was the former Indian skipper’s wicket which tickled him the most. “That’s a dream come true. A guy I have watched for so long, he’s a hero for all these guys. The roar when he came out to bat sort of took me back a little bit and it was quite special to share the field with him. I tried to embrace it and play with a smile on my face. When Virat walked out to bat and the crowd went off... that’s amazing sort of stuff... I think that’s going to live with me forever. It’s awesome to get the opportunity to mix it with guys like that,” he told the official broadcaster after Stumps on day two.
With three wickets yet to fall for India, Murphy will be looking to better his figures come Saturday. Who knows, he may even topple compatriot and spinner Jason Krejza’s record figures of 8/215 at this very venue against this very opponent, 15 years ago. Interestingly, Krejza registered these mind-boggling numbers on his debut as well!
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