Todd Murphy had quite a day in Puducherry, doing things he often doesn't get to do back home in Australia, including chasing a stray dog off the field.
"A couple of the boys were into me about trying to get it off," Murphy quipped after stumps on day three in the first unofficial Test between India A and Australia A. "I chased it around, but it ran rings around me... but we finally got it off there. It's all part of the beauty over here."
The 25 year-old offspinner also had fun in the middle, bagging four wickets in India A's second innings to go with three in their first. He wheeled away for 48.3 overs across both innings and his haul especially on Thursday helped keep his team in the contest. Australia A are 55 for 2 chasing 363.
Murphy has played seven Test matches so far since his debut in 2023, but none of those have come at home. During the Sheffield Shield, he often sits back and lets the likes of Scott Boland and Fergus O'Neill do the heavy-lifting for Victoria in seamer-friendly Australian conditions. In Puducherry, the roles were reversed with Murphy and fellow offspinner Corey Rocchiccioli being the frontmen while O'Neill was largely being used as a change bowler.
"It is really fun and I think that's probably one of the things coming over [to India] that you look forward to," Murphy said. "You really hope that you get a couple of days where the conditions are in your favour and you can go to work. A lot of the time, in Shield cricket especially, you're there as a support role for the quicks, so it's nice for that to be flipped every now and then and be able to bowl some long overs. I don't remember the last time I bowled that many overs in a game as well."
On a mixed-soil pitch that had deteriorated rapidly and played tricks on day three, Murphy kept the stumps in play and exploited the variable bounce on offer. Eighty-seven of the 90 balls he delivered in the third innings pitched in line with the stumps or just outside off, according to Cricinfo's logs.
After teasing the Test-capped B Sai Sudharsan with some overspin and extra bounce, Murphy rifled in a slider from around the wicket and pinned him lbw with the one that didn't turn. He also trapped Shams Mulani and Tushar Deshpande with quicker ones that skidded in, but against the more aggressive Anshul Kamboj, he slowed his pace down, tossed the ball up higher and coaxed the batter into mis-hitting the ball to Rocchiccioli at long-on.
Having played four of his seven Tests in India - Murphy claimed a match haul of seven wickets on debut in Nagpur three years ago - and having been on an A team trip to Sri Lanka in the past, he seems to have a reference point for what to do in these conditions.
"I feel like coming over here now, I'm really confident with my go-to game plan, how I want to attack it," Murphy said. "I feel like once I've got that base, then I'm able to adapt and try different things as well and try and add a few different layers to that. That's probably been the biggest thing that I've enjoyed so far in this game.
"I'm confident in what I'm doing day-to-day and trying to add different things to that and see what works and what doesn't. It's been really enjoyable - consistently getting to come back over here because I feel like you're able to take the learnings and keep developing."
Puducherry's heat and humidity has seriously challenged the players, including those from the home team. Kumar Kushagra suffered from cramps and retired hurt on 82 in India A's first innings before returning to complete his hundred.
"I think we bowled three days in a row as well," Murphy said, "So it's a really good test to see how you come back each day. The heat and the humidity add a different layer to how tough it is. Same thing, you're just trying to get information around what helps you with that, so the food you're eating, how much you've got to drink and all that sort of stuff is part of the learning as well. It's definitely tough, but I'd also rather be the one bowling than fielding, so it works out well."
Murphy's shift with the ball is over in this game. But he has one more four-dayer and three one-dayers coming up in Puducherry to expand his knowledge of Indian conditions before he potentially returns to the country for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy next year along with Nathan Lyon and Matt Kuhnemann.