“It's been awesome” - Todd Murphy on battle with Virat Kohli

Despite playing only seven first-class games before the Nagpur Test, Todd Murphy showed no signs of immaturity and bowled with control to land seven wickets in one innings. One among them was Virat Kohli, and what is astonishing is that Murphy dismissed the former Indian skipper two more times in the series to create a niche for himself. 

Onto the fourth Test in Ahmedabad, the off-spinner suggested that it was a fine battle, daunting at times, and he relished bowling out there.

"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."

"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."

Australia played three front-line spinners in Muphy, Nathan Lyon, and Matthew Kuhnemann. For Murphy, it was the first time he experienced bowling alongside two spinners. While he was thrilled about it, Murphy revealed that captain Steve Smith’s advice ahead of the third Test worked well for the team.

"It's something I've never really experienced, playing with two other frontline spinners," Murphy said. "Steve [Smith] talked about it before the last Test, it's about putting your ego away and knowing you're going to bowl short spells at times. 

“It doesn't mean you're not bowling well, it's probably just accepting that and knowing that at certain times you're going to be playing different roles. It's been enjoyable and we've been able to work off each other very well and we're quite different."