Australian spinners in India a horror story but Murphy can turn tide on tour if selectors take bold gamble

If Australia want to avoid a repeat of their horrific history in India, they should be handing young Victorian spinner Todd Murphy a debut in the first Test next month. 

The Australian selectors are set to announce a squad on Wednesday and Murphy is expected to be named in the touring party for the first time in his career. 

While skipper Pat Cummins has indicated the Australians will consider the option of going into the first Test with Nathan Lyon as their sole frontline spinner, Murphy shapes as the best bet as his back-up ahead of Ashton Agar and Mitch Swepson.

The 22-year-old off-spinner has taken 29 wickets at 25.2 in just seven first-class matches with a bowling action eerily similar to former England tweaker Graeme Swann. 

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If he becomes the 465th men’s player to earn a baggy green cap, it would be the boldest selection call by Australia since they gambled on Lyon in Sri Lanka in 2011 when he had just five first-class matches on his resume.

Todd Murphy. (Photo by Morgan Hancock/Getty Images)

When it comes to Australian spinners who have done well in India, there are only 13 bowlers who have taken 10 wickets or more – eight of them were off-spinners, Steve O’Keefe was the other finger-spinner with his left-arm orthodox tweakers while one four were leg-spinners.

And of that quartet who bowled over the wrist, only the legendary Richie Benaud way back on Australia’s first two tours way back in the 1950s was consistently successful. 

India was spin king Shane Warne’s least successful port of call, collecting a modest 34 wickets in nine Tests. His average of 43.11 was his worst of any overseas destination and significantly higher than his career mark of 25.41.

Australia’s highest wicket-taking spinners in India

It was also his worst foreign location for strike rate, snaring wickets at 78.2 instead of his career rate of 57.4

Former teammates of Warne’s, who had mediocre careers in comparison to him, thrived in India bowling off breaks – Greg Matthews took 18 wickets in three Tests at 29.07, Colin Miller bagged six wickets at 33.5 in his only match while Gavin Robertson also outshone him with 12 wickets at 34.41 in the three-match 1998 tour. 

And then there was the one-off Test appearance by Jason Krejza in 2008, who took 12 wickets on debut with his fizzing off-spinners after the Cameron White leg-spin experiment failed dismally.

Lyon’s record of 34 wickets in seven Tests is impressive, snaring the same amount as Warne at a much better average and strike rate in two fewer matches.

Even though Murphy bowls the same style as Lyon, he’s impressed his fellow offie.

“I’m very impressed with Todd Murphy. I’ve done a little bit of work with [him], been around the [Sydney] Sixers with him…he’s definitely put his hand up,” Lyon said at a press conference last month. “I first had a bowl with him about two years during Covid in the Shield bubble. He’s got the skill set, it’s just about him learning the craft, tactically and mentally, and really homing in on bowling an unbelievable stock ball and he’s definitely got that.”

Nathan Lyon. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

O’Keefe and NSW captain Moises Henriques have also been vocal in their support for Murphy to be the heir apparent to Lyon.

“He impressed me last year as well,” Henriques told Channel Seven of his Sixers teammate in a post-match interview on Sunday after Murphy starred in the win over the Thunder. “I couldn’t believe it when we needed a replacement spinner last year and he was on the market. I remember facing him in a one-dayer and other than Nathan Lyon he’s probably the best off-spinner I’ve faced for a very long time.

“He’s a young man, and he’s doing things that only old men can do so it’s a good sign.”

Proponents for the selection of Agar, who went wicketless in the third Test against South Africa, could point to O’Keefe as an example of how Australian left-arm finger spinners can excel in India.

O’Keefe bagged 17 wickets in four Tests in 2017, highlighted by his match haul of 12-70 in Australia’s sole win in Pune in the second fixture of the series. 

However, he is a much different bowler to Agar. “SOK” worked his magic by skidding through on a low trajectory whereas the much-taller Agar uses his height to extract more bounce in the hope of finding the edge of the bat or beating it altogether.

Swepson did well when called up for four Tests in the tours to Pakistan and Sri Lanka last year but his chances of forcing his way into the XI have been hampered by India’s decision to bank heavily on finger-spinners.

(Cricket Australia)

In their only home series last year, two matches against Bangladesh, they played two quicks and three finger-spinners with all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja the third option batting at No.7 and wicketkeeper Risabh Pant in the middle order. 

Tellingly, they have played a wrist-spinner only once in their past 13 Tests at home when left-armer Kuldeep Yadav was given a brief try against England. 

That should be a sign to the Australian selectors that wrist-spin is a tough slog on Indian pitches unless a bowler has a quick pace and the ability to zip the ball into a batter like Anil Kumble did nearly two decades in accumulating 619 wickets from 132 Tests.

Australia’s team record in India is poor by any measure. 

Travis Head, Ashton Agar and Nathan Lyon of Australia. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

From 14 tours since Ian Johnson led the first Australian side to the subcontinent in 1956, they have won just four series, drawn two and lost the other eight. 

The Indians have been victorious in seven of the past eight times they’ve hosted Australia with the only anomaly the 2004 series when Adam Gilchrist filled in for an injured Ricky Ponting to lead the team to a 2-1 series upset. 

In terms of matches, Australia have won just 13 of 50 contests, losing 21, drawing 15 and taking part in the 1986 Tied Test at Chennai.

And India have built a fortress at home – in the past decade they have won 34 Tests, drawn six and lost just twice – the aforementioned O’Keefe match in Pune when Steve Smith scored 109 as wickets fell around him and the series opener against England by 227 runs in 2021, powered by Joe Root’s 218. 

Cummins indicated on Sunday after the draw in Sydney that Mitchell Starc was unlikely to be fit for the first Test at Nagpur on February 9 due to his finger injury but all-rounder Cameron Green was still a chance to play as he also recovers from a damaged digit. 

(Photo by Jason McCawley – CA/Cricket Australia via Getty Images)

Starc’s absence means Cummins and Hazlewood would be the new-ball duo but if Green is out, that would help Agar’s cause in that he could bat at No.7 to give Australia a fifth bowler with Scott Boland coming into the attack as a third seamer. 

Murphy averages just 13.83 with the bat at first-class level so the selectors would be reluctant to pick him as part of a five-man bowling line-up as that would mean Cummins would be elevated to seven in the order and they’d have a long tail after him. 

The other option if Green can’t prove his fitness would be to play a sixth specialist batter and try to get by with the part-time wares of Travis Head, Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne to support Lyon in the spin department.

Apart from the selection of the spinners, the other main area of interest in the squad announcement will revolve around the back-up batters. Matt Renshaw, after being selected to bat at No.6 at the SCG, is a certain selection.

He can cover opener and the middle order but if they take two back-up batters it will be a decision between Peter Handscomb as a specialist middle-order option or whether opener Marcus Harris is still needed with Renshaw able to cover the top of the order. 

Young West Australian Josh Inglis is the likely candidate to also tour as the back-up wicketkeeper to Alex Carey or the team could get by with Handscomb, who is capable with the gloves, as the substitute gloveman. 

Possible squad: David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith (v-c), Travis Head, Matt Renshaw, Peter Handscomb, Cameron Green, Alex Carey, Josh Inglis, Pat Cummins (c), Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Scott Boland, Nathan Lyon, Ashton Agar, Todd Murphy.