I
t was not probably the most imaginative chant ever written, however that Todd Murphy spent a lot of the Ashes Third Test’s last day parked on the fence, shut sufficient to the Western Terrace that he would have heard even a whispered rendition, was telling.
“You’re just a s*** Harry Potter,” they sang to the bespectacled offie, the boy wizard, in fact, having been famend for ragging it sq. in his Hogwarts days. By the time Headingley emptied, the gang knew about as a lot of Murphy’s aptitude for potion-making as they did his job of bowling spin.
Test match fourth innings are, historically, the place spinners cease singing for his or her supper and begin consuming it, and whereas this was not a floor on which Murphy may have anticipated to tuck in, Pat Cummins’s reluctance to throw the ball to the 22-year-old was nonetheless placing.
True, it was just one Test in the past that Australia bowled England out within the fourth innings with no wicket falling to spin. Then, although, that they had extra runs to play with and three potent seam choices, whereas right here, with Josh Hazlewood rested, Scott Boland was ineffective, going wicketless within the match.
Of the 50 overs in England’s chase, Murphy bowled simply two, one a token squeezed in earlier than lunch, the opposite a Hail Mary with solely 30 runs left to guard. Harry Brook pounced on each, justification, maybe, for Cummins’s hesitance, however, given an extended look, it will hardly have been uncharacteristic for the Yorkshireman to get grasping and take too nice a threat.
It was solely a few days earlier that Ben Stokes had holed out attempting to wallop Murphy out of the bottom one time too many. Heck, Marnus Labuschagne had succumbed attempting to slog-sweep England’s spinner, Moeen Ali, who additionally managed to prize Steve Smith’s wicket out of nothing on the identical unhelpful pitch.
The lack of a bowler about to surpass 500 Test wickets was at all times going to go away a gap on this Australian facet, however even because the Lord’s contest by which Nathan Lyon was struck down was nonetheless enjoying out, there appeared truthful optimism that Murphy was able to plug it. It was not that anybody thought the spinner would possibly fill Lyon’s footwear fully, extra that he would possibly accomplish that sufficiently sufficient to take a number of strides with out them sliding straight off. Yesterday, although, he was barely given the prospect.
Having missed a gap to get him into the guts of the battle on Ashes debut, Australia should hope that Murphy’s confidence shouldn’t be too badly knocked. Cummins blamed circumstances in Leeds, however they’re unlikely to be an excuse when the sequence subsequent heads to Old Trafford, traditionally England’s most spin-friendly monitor.
