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Youngster could help some of Australia’s modern greats tick their bucket lists

Matt Roller27-Jul-2023Moeen Ali was batting on one leg by the time he arched his bat and upper-cut Pat Cummins for four over Alex Carey’s head, and Australia seemed to have let their opportunity to take control of the fifth Test slip away.Cummins had finally won a toss, his first of the series, and asked England to bat first under thick cloud cover, with the floodlights turned on shortly after the lunch break. Australia had reduced England to 73 for 3 but dropped three catches and missed a run-out chance; Harry Brook and Moeen had brought up a 100-run stand in 17 overs.Enter Todd Murphy, long sleeves pulled up, top-button clasped and up-turned collar flopping down. At 22, Murphy is a boy in a team of men, the youngest player in this Australian XI by seven years. He has played as many Tests as Sheffield Shield games (six of each), and in most of those he has been Victoria’s second spinner.But here he was, standing at the Vauxhall End and trying to burgle a wicket for a group of team-mates at a completely different stage in life to him. This Australia team will undergo a near-total regeneration before its next tour here in four years’ time and these five days are about securing a legacy for most of them. Murphy is still making his way.Related

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His first ball was a fraction short, and Brook punched it away through point to get off strike. His second was even shorter. Moeen rocked back and pulled him away through midwicket for four. Cummins told short leg to move to midwicket, fearing that Murphy had already underlined the reason for his non-selection in Manchester last week.But Murphy’s next ball was a braver one: much fuller, drifting in with the around-the-wicket angle. It was quick (58mph/93kph) and hardly turned, but had enough drop on it to sneak underneath Moeen’s bat as he swung wildly, lining up a swipe into the leg side.Murphy hardly celebrated, wearing the expression of a bowler still annoyed at himself for the previous ball. Perhaps, too, he was conscious of what is to come: Moeen’s wicket brought Ben Stokes in at No. 6, the man who crashed him for five sixes at Headingley before eventually holing out to long-on.And yet Murphy fared well against Stokes, tossing the ball up and conceding only two singles from the 11 balls he bowled to him. He beat him on the cut, cramping him for room, and responded by dragging his length back when Stokes skipped out of his crease.He was whipped out of the attack after Stokes fell, losing his off stump to Mitchell Starc when looking to break the scoring pressure by turning him into the leg side, then returned for a token over before tea.After the interval, Murphy’s second ball was full and flighted, and scythed over point for four by Mark Wood. It was one of two boundaries he conceded, and just as he had after lunch, he responded by taking a wicket with his next ball: Wood cleared his front leg, and Murphy’s offbreak crashed into the top of his middle stump.There was a brief celebration this time, punching the air and roaring, “yeah! Come on!” before giving David Warner – 14 years his senior – a high-ten. Wood’s partnership with Chris Woakes was worth 49, the third-highest partnership of England’s innings; it was Murphy who broke two of the three substantial stands.He finished with 2 for 22 from his six overs – and it should have been three-for, but for a fluffed caught-and-bowled chance when Woakes chipped one back to him. Thrown into away tours in India and England, Murphy has 17 wickets at 24.94 in his first five-and-a-bit Tests.Moeen Ali was bowled by Todd Murphy for 34•Getty Images”Since he started in his Test career he’s been really good for us, through India,” Starc said. “He didn’t play a heap of a role at Headingley – [he was] used pretty sparingly there – but he’s come back and played a job today. He’s going to learn from those experiences, his first Ashes tour on the back of his first Indian tour.”Murphy has had a walk-on role in this series and it is clear that Cummins does not trust him to the same extent that he does Nathan Lyon. And how could he be expected to? Lyon is a veteran of 122 Tests; Murphy is playing the 14th first-class game of his career.”Obviously coming in and trying to fill Nathan’s boots is a big deal as it is,” Starc added. “Nathan has obviously bowled quite well here in the past; did in the Test final. Todd’s gone off the back of that and bowled some really good overs today with a couple of crucial wickets. We’ll look for him to play another part in the second innings.”Starc predicted that Murphy is “going to be a quality spinner for us for a long time,” and Australia will hope that he can be Lyon’s long-term successor. Whether that proves to be the case or not, he is fulfilling a role well enough that he could help some of Australia’s modern greats tick one final achievement off their bucket lists.

Arsenal fans have been going apoplectic over the refereeing decisions in their Champions League semi-final first leg against Paris Saint-Germain.

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• Soft Saka foul against Nuno flagged by Gunners fans
• Arsenal could have had a penalty too
• PSG also had claim to a spot-kick

• WHAT HAPPENED?

  Tensions were running high at the Emirates Stadium and on social media, as the performance of Slavko Vincic was questioned by both sets of fans on X. Arsenal supporters felt hard done by after Bukayo Saka was deemed to have fouled Nuno Mendes for a gentle push in the back. Had the play continued the winger was through on goal. Saka was then booked for kicking the ball away. However, both sets of fans will feel they could have had a penalty. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia appeared to be impeded by Myles Lewis-Skelly in the Arsenal area, while Mikel Merino saw a goal-scoring opportunity denied by Joao Neves. A replay appeared to show the Portuguese got the ball before making contact with the Arsenal midfielder.

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  WHAT THE FANS ARE SAYING

  Vincic's performance was the main point of conversation on X. One user, Culturecams, posted: "Ref needs half time more than the players."

  Another supporter, BodegaaCat, added: "This ref has been shocking. Mendes fell over way before he was touched"

  Mabyllionaire wrote: "Arsenal fans booing the ref… these lot were calling themselves "Dark Arts FC" and now someone's doing it to them in a game that actually matters they can't hack it."

  FIFA Youtuber and Arsenal fan Nepenthez gave his two cents, writing: "This f*cking ref man. Blowing every time a PSG player gets breathed on."

• THE BIGGER PICTURE

  Vincic did get some of his decisions spot on. Myles Lewis-Skelly was rightly shown a yellow card for a number of fouls on Desiree Doue. Even so, the attending Arsenal fans were vocal in their opinion of the Serbian's performance, showering the Emirates pitch with boos. Given the performance of both sets of players, their anger could only be directed at one man.

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  DID YOU KNOW?

  Arsenal face a difficult task in the second half as they fell behind to an smart finish by Ousmane Dembele in just the fourth minute. The curling effort was the result of a 27-pass move by Les Parisiens. Gianluigi Donnarumma was able to maintain the visitors' lead when he made a sharp save from a Saka effort a few minutes before the break.

Liverpool will hold new contract talks with Ibrahima Konate after learning of Paris Saint-Germain's desire to sign the defender this summer.

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• Liverpool have reportedly held new talks with Konate
• The discussions come amid interest from PSG
• But in-demand Huijsen could be a replacement

• WHAT HAPPENED?

  Konate’s contract at Anfield expires at the end of next season and, as they seek to extend his stay at the club beyond then, the Reds also hold an interest in Dean Huijsen as a potential replacement for the France centre-back.

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  THE BIGGER PICTURE

  reported that there has been no breakthrough in talks between Liverpool and Konate, with the decision made to focus on his contract in response to interest from PSG, who knocked the Reds out of the Champions League this season.

  If no resolution can be reached with Konate, then there could be motivation on Liverpool’s part to cash in and avoid losing him for free at the end of next season. Should that scenario play out, then a move for Huijsen may be on the cards. The Reds are interested in the Bournemouth defender, but are expected to have competition from Chelsea, Arsenal and Newcastle United.

• HOW KONATE AND HUIJSEN COMPARE

  There’s reason to believe Liverpool would not be too upset at the thought of losing Konate, if they could indeed replace him with Huijsen, who has impressed significantly for Bournemouth this season and has contributed to seven clean sheets in the league this season. The Spain international has been on the pitch for 25 of the 40 league goals Bournemouth have conceded. Konate has seen 21 of Liverpool’s 31 goals conceded with him on the field.

  Huijsen has made more blocks (25 to 15), interceptions (49 to 11) and clearances (160 to 110) than Konate in the league this season despite playing the same amount of games (27). Konate has the edge in terms of aerial duels won (69 to 61) and tackles (36 to 33).

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  WHAT NEXT FOR KONATE AND HUIJSEN?

  Konate will hope to help Liverpool get over the line and clinch the Premier League title on Sunday, when the Reds will need just a point against Tottenham to win the league.

  Bournemouth host Manchester United earlier on the same day, with Huijsen likely to be key as they look to take a step towards European qualification.

This match was lost in its first half hour, irrespective of “positives” Root says can be gleaned from the wreckage

Andrew Miller11-Dec-2021Eleven Tests, ten defeats and a draw, and scarcely a whiff of an upset in any of them. Since their last series win in Australia in 2010-11, England’s record Down Under has been abysmal – so poor, in fact, that it was hard to feel especially moved by the totality of this latest loss at Brisbane.When a side has slumped to 11 for 3 inside six overs after choosing to bat first, it’s hard to muster much more than a shrug of recognition when the same outfit squanders its final eight wickets in an unseemly rush for the exits. This match was lost within half an hour of its beginning, irrespective of the “positives” that Joe Root, England’s captain, is adamant can still be gleaned from the wreckage.”We’re game-hardened now,” Root said, after England’s Covid- and rain-wrecked build-up to the first Test. “We’d not had that going into it, so we’ll be better for it. Those guys that have not experienced [the Ashes] before know what’s coming now, and sometimes that [next] game coming around quite quickly is exactly what you need, to get straight back out there and put things right.”Related

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It’s not that Root does not have a point. With the ball, Mark Wood and Ollie Robinson were outstanding in contrasting yet complementary ways, while Root’s own reaction to his first-innings duck was reassuring confirmation that the world’s No.1 batter has not mislaid his touch in the four months since his last competitive outing. His partnership with Dawid Malan was in-game evidence of the strides that this team can make, while Haseeb Hameed and Ollie Pope are among a cast of players who may feel better orientated for their incomplete displays.And yet England, by dint of their glaring inadequacies in Australian conditions, have now set such low expectations that all manner of bouncing dead cats could be mistaken for signs of an impending recovery – maybe even Rory Burns’ triumph in avoiding a king pair, a feat he achieved by avoiding the first ball of the innings for only the fourth occasion out of 264 in his first-class career. Even then, he had to rely on the lottery that was the Gabba’s technology back-up to overturn an lbw verdict two balls later.No amount of marginal gains from first innings to second can disguise England’s current run of 11 Tests – and 11 years – without a victory in Australia. It is a longer run of failure than they managed even in an era commonly recalled as the team’s nadir – the ten-Test stretch from January 1987 to January 1995, which began with Mike Gatting’s Ashes-winners being spun to defeat at Sydney by an unknown debutant Peter Taylor (whom legend has it owed his call-up to a case of mistaken identity) and ended with an extraordinary win against the head at Adelaide – one of those glorious 1990s flashes-in-the-pan that somehow made all of the team’s other indignities worthwhile.In between whiles, those indignities included Graham Gooch “farting against thunder” during a supine 3-0 loss in the “Tiger Moth” tour of 1990-91 – a series in which England managed to take a first-innings lead in each of the opening two Tests, only to then lose them by ten wickets (at the Gabba, natch) and eight wickets respectively. Thereafter, Shane Warne’s supremacy opened such a baffling new dimension in Ashes combat that England could hardly be blamed for taking an entire generation to work out how to play him.Rory Burns trudges off after a second failure•Getty ImagesThere’s no such mystery about Australia’s dominance these days. They have a mighty roster of fast bowlers, and a spinner in Nathan Lyon with sufficient guile to claim 403 Test wickets and counting. And while Steve Smith is a freak of nature who had been averaging 120 in Ashes Tests over the past four years, he’s still not quite Don Bradman – on whose watch England’s record barren run in Australia was recorded: 12 Tests (punctuated by a World War) between 1937 and 1951.Some might counter that Australia’s recent record in England isn’t so flash either. They haven’t won an Ashes series there since 2001, which – on the face of it – goes to underline the suspicion that home advantage is half the battle won in modern-day Test cricket. And yet, that doesn’t square with Australia’s impressive haul of four wins and a draw in their last ten away Ashes Tests.Nor does it square with the fact that there has been just one truly close contest, home or away, since Australia launched their 5-0 whitewash at the Gabba in 2013. Ben Stokes’ miracle at Headingley in 2019 was precisely the sort of heist that encouraged the fallacy (and everyone bought into it to a greater or lesser degree) that there could yet be a twist to this latest tale, despite all reasonable Test-match precedent stating that, when a team trails by 278 runs on first innings, there’s really no hope of salvation.But it’s an addictive narrative nonetheless, and one that England were leaning on during the summer as well, when they lost two series on home soil for the first time since that aforementioned Ashes summer of 2001. And yes, we know that – technically speaking – the India series isn’t over yet. But anyone who witnessed England getting mangled at Lord’s and The Oval knows where the balance of power lay going into the fifth Test at Old Trafford.Everything about England’s Test cricket at present is focused on the individuals within fronting up and giving more to the cause – be it Stokes, only just returned from the abyss after fearing his badly mended finger might prevent him from playing ever again – or more recently Root, on whom English cricket’s every expectation is currently piled. The moment he failed to reach his elusive maiden century in Australia was the moment that the scales fell from the optimists’ eyes. This year’s monstrous haul of 1544 runs at 64.33 could grow larger still at Adelaide and Melbourne, but even Root’s lifetime best hasn’t been able to prevent England from losing seven and winning one of their last ten Tests.But miracle-working is a tenacious narrative – just ask the Bible’s publishers. For Root in this contest, and Stokes in general terms, read James Anderson’s recall under the Adelaide lights next week. While there’s individual brilliance in England’s ranks, there’s always reason to believe that the collective can surge as one. But just don’t look too closely at Anderson’s overall win-loss record in Australia. Nor, for that matter, at the England Lions’ batting card in their unofficial Test against Australia A, which is taking place just down the road. The rot, it seems, is set deep into the system, and not simply restricted to those who’ve been outgunned at the Gabba.

Ireland needed just 18.3 overs on day five – with threat of rain looming – to close out the game

Ekanth10-Feb-2025Rain was the biggest threat Ireland faced when they came to the Queens Sports Club on day five. But in 18.3 overs, they wrapped up the one-off Test against Zimbabwe with a 63-run win. They needed to create seven chances for the last three wickets, and in the process completed their first hat-trick of Test wins in their ten-match history. It is the earliest point any team has earned a hat-trick of Test wins, bettering South Africa, who needed 14 matches.Matthew Humphreys converted his overnight four-for into a career-best 6 for 57, with Andy McBrine – his spin-bowling partner – closing out the game by knocking over Richard Ngarava with the new ball.Wessly Madhevere, Zimbabwe’s last ray of hope, battled through 195 balls for his 84. When his outside edge was beaten and stumps rattled by a quicker length ball from Humphreys, he could not drag himself out of the field, covering his face with his bat in despondence as the game was effectively done.The day started 30 minutes earlier than scheduled with 37 overs lost on day four. Humphreys, who had bowled 18 overs to stumps, was handed the ball. He needed three overs to create a chance – when he got Madhevere to nearly chip a drive to cover – and one more ball to trap Newman Nyamhuri plumb in front and complete his five-for.McBrine replaced Mark Adair right after and created two chances in his second over, both of which went down. Lorcan Tucker dropped one that went low off Richard Ngarava’s edge, while McBrine failed to hold onto a low skimmer the next ball. In the next over, Paul Stirling shuffled to the right at first slip when Madhevere’s reverse-sweep went aerial but couldn’t get within reach.Ireland took the new ball in the 81st over and McBrine found extra bounce with it right away. The sun broke out but Zimbabwe’s hopes flickered off in the 84th, when Humphreys got Madhevere, his sixth scalp.Blessing Muzarabani had put on 67 for the last wicket in the first innings with Trevor Gwandu, but to put on 74 with Richard Ngarava was too much of an ask. Ngarava hung around for 39 balls and took a couple of swings. He was beaten in the 86th over and knocked over in the next.McBrine flighted a full ball on middle stump, beat the slog sweep, and set the smiles free in Ireland’s camp. When asked about the hat-trick of wins at the presentation, Ireland captain Andy Balbirnie said, “Just waiting for the DVD to come out! We are desperate to play, we don’t know when our next Test match is.”As per the FTP, they are scheduled to play Afghanistan at home in July.