Todd Murphy and Matthew Renshaw hug after the former was capped to make his Test debut for Australia in Nagpur.Credit:Getty Images
So much so,Howard reckoned that Murphy’s appreciation for different seam positions and variations would make him a useful counterpoint to Lyon’s formidable stock ball and consistency.
Murphy edged out left-armer Ashton Agar for the second spin spot,the first time two frontline off-spinners have been chosen for Australia since Tim May and Peter Taylor in Pakistan in 1988 – or Gavin Robertson and Colin Miller,also in Pakistan,10 years later.
“If they’re by far and away the two best options,then I think it makes sense to go down that path,” Howard toldThe Age andThe Sydney Morning Herald from Cape Town,where he is spin coach for New Zealand women at the Twenty20 World Cup. ″They are very different in what they do and how they go about it.
“Murph has had to manipulate his seam a little bit more because his stock ball isn’t quite as brutish as Nathan’s at the moment. So,he’s certainly able to bowl with more variation than Nathan had. I think they’ll be very different.”
Murphy’s spin education has been global in nature virtually from the moment he started training with Howard at Sandhurst Cricket Club in Bendigo,before moving to Melbourne to play for St Kilda,Victoria and ultimately Australia.
“He’s very well versed in what he needs to do in these conditions,” Howard said. “Even the spin weeks and spin months we had up in Brisbane where he’s bowling on the red clay wickets,we have subcontinent weeks up there. So,he’s done a lot of that from the age of 17.
”He’s been to the MRF academy in India twice now and went to Sri Lanka as well. So,he’s done a lot of it,a lot more than Nathan would have done at the same age. So,he’s had to learn through that to be adaptable with his seam position because he knows what he has to do in Australia doesn’t always work in those conditions.