Border Gavaskar Trophy, Todd Murphy relishes ‘awesome’ battle with Kohli and ‘surreal’ start to Test cricket

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Surreal. Daunting. As good as it gets. Those are just three ways Todd Murphy described his first experience of Test cricket amid the series in India, where he has been lauded for his maturity and ability to slot into the side despite limited experience.

Murphy had played seven first-class matches when he was called in to debut at Nagpur where he claimed seven wickets. All told he has taken 11 wickets at 21.81 with a miserly economy of 2.61, the latter particularly coming to the fore in the second innings in Indore when his wicketless 14 overs went for just 18 runs. He was praised by Daniel Vettori for playing a role in ensuring another India collapse.

Among that he has claimed Virat Kohli three times; the first owed a bit to luck when Kohli was caught down the leg side but the other two, especially the dismissal in Indore, came about through terrific skill.

“It’s been awesome,” Murphy said of that battle. “When I look back to Nagpur when he walked out to bat, I was at the top of my mark thinking this is as good as it gets getting to bowl to a guy like that. So to be able to have that for the first three Tests has been awesome, a really enjoyable battle and no different to bowling to a lot of their guys. When they stand there it is daunting at times.”

Murphy was modest about the set-up to Kohli in Indore. “It’s always nice when it looks like that,” he said. “And I think the plans for [coming from] around the wicket is always to challenge both sides of the edges, for that to work out the way it did was nice and to get him out again was awesome.”

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