JOIN USOffie Todd tweaks the Murphy’s Law
Murphy’s Law revisited: Anything that can go right will go right.
Example: Todd Murphy went from not being in contention for Victoria a year ago to having a stellar Sheffield Shield season with his state side to making the Australian squad for the tour of India to picking up five wickets on debut with the national team.
The 22-year-old off-spinner, who resembles the lot that gets picked on in school, was instrumental in Australia having some say in the game. For if it wasn’t for his figures of 5 for 82 from 36 overs, Rohit Sharma and Co would have entertained a closeout.
It’s still pretty bad as it stands, India are 144 runs ahead after putting up 321 in response to Australia’s first innings tally of 177, but it could have been worse. Much worse.
That the visitors hinged their hopes on an unheralded, bespectacled youngster comes as a surprise not only to the cricket community but also to Jamie - Todd’s father.
“He’s always had that get-up-and-go attitude, that’s usually what it takes to be a good cricketer, but you never know it’ll happen this fast, especially because he has only been bowling off-spin for a short amount of time. We definitely didn’t expect this to happen,” says Jamie even as his youngest son is on the mark to deliver another ball.
“Two of those wickets were fairly ordinary balls, you see. We’re not getting carried away just yet,” adds the former St Kilda Cricket Club player.
Jamie’s apprehension isn’t unfounded. After all, Murphy fancied himself as a batter and then a medium pacer until he was 16-years-old, living in sleepy old Moama.
Spotted ‘stuffing around’ by former Victorian leg-spinner Craig Howard at an Under-16 ‘nets’ in Rochester, Todd and Jamie were told to switch to spin.
“My medium pace really wasn’t any good anyway,” says Todd between a chuckle during his first press conference on Friday. “I was tinkering in the nets with off-spin bowling and got some good feedback. Kept working at it, and it has been the best thing I have ever done.”
His ‘mucking about’ after playing the Under-19 World Cup in South Africa helped him earn a rookie contract with Victoria in June 2020, but it would be a year before he got a game.
Six months into the year, he found himself representing Australia A in Sri Lanka. And now he’s in India with only seven first-class games under his belt.
“He’s got an attitude where he’s never beaten,” says Jamie. “He’s happy to bowl the hardest over to the best batsmen. That’s why he wasn’t too worried about bowling to (Virat) Kohli. He looked like he was enjoying it and he took on the challenge.”
“The best thing about him is that he has a lot of empathy,” adds Jamie before pausing to say: “oh, no, the best thing about him is that he is competitive like hell.”
Jamie, in an earlier interaction, had compared Todd’s competitive spirit to Shane Warne’s. Todd wasn’t too pleased, obviously. “(Laughs) Yeah, I shook him, I don’t think I am anything similar to Warnie.”
But Todd wouldn’t have frowned upon comparisons to Nathan Lyon or Graeme Swann - he has been getting a lot of that of late.
“I have heard it but I haven’t taken that much notice. I hope he can be half as good as Graeme Swann. Yeah, he was always talked about being like Nathan. Now, the Swann thing has come up. They’re both pretty good bowlers so I’ll take any of it,” says Jamie.
The tension in the VIP box, which houses Jamie, his brother, Todd’s older brother, Todd’s girlfriend and a few others, is palpable. At this point, Todd’s on wicket number four.
He should have had Ravindra Jadeja out leg before wicket but an umpire’s call denied him the pleasure. The family wasn’t too pleased either.
Not much later, they all rose to their feet with hands in the air, their last-minute dash to arrive in India from Melbourne wasn’t in vain.
Todd dismissed fellow debutant KS Bharat for his fifer. Thus, becoming the greatest cricketer from Moama, an icon. Only, he wears thick glasses, likes betting on horses and keeps his room fairly organised.
Just a small-town boy living a big dream.