For a visiting slow bowler, India can be a trap. It is the spiritual home of spin, the still centre of the universe of revolutions, the place where you might find the most dramatic turner since Tina. It is the place tilted drastically to your advantage, like doing high jump on the moon. But if you’re not steeped in how to use the advantage, if you don’t hit the right lengths, if you don’t know how to bowl to players who know how to face you, then the place chews you up and spits you out, as ragged as the cricket ball after 80 overs on those rough pitches.
From his first encounter, Todd Murphy has emerged intact. Innings figures of five for 82 could become more flattering or less when India continue their first innings on the third day with three wickets in hand. But whatever the final analysis, the quiet off-spinner from country Victoria has shown that he is up to the task. KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli have 53 Test centuries between them and nearly 18,000 runs. Murphy put them all in his pocket.
