Spin’s dim future? Australia not bringing Murphy in for Ashes finale

Australia has opted against using a spinner in Sydney’s New Year’s Test for the first time in more than 130 years, choosing to leave Todd Murphy on the bench instead of using the spectacled spin prince to replace the injured Nathan Lyon.

Instead, Steve Smith and Andrew McDonald have turned to all-rounder Beau Webster to supplement the team’s all-pace attack that will be led by Mitchell Starc, Scott Boland, and Scott Neser when they face England one final time in the 2025-26 series. It will be the very first time since 1888 that Australia hasn’t picked a strike spinner for a Test at the SCG.

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What makes it most interesting is that Australian coach Andrew McDonald declared that he would “love to pick Todd” — a call this Sporting Base writer assumed meant the spectacled spinner was in for all money — which may suggest that skipper Steve Smith had made the final call on Murphy’s exclusion once he’d seen Sydney’s wicket on Sunday morning.

For his part, Smith said he was unhappy about having to make the call. “Hate doing it,” he said. “But we keep producing wickets we don’t think are going to spin, and seam’s going to play a big part. You kind of get pushed into a corner.”

“We’ve seen, obviously, at Perth, we barely bowled spin. We didn’t bowl a spinner in the pink ball Test. And last week [in Adelaide] was obviously a different one [because] it was quite a dry surface and offered rough,” he added.

“With a lot of the wickets we’re playing on now, I think spin… is the easiest thing to face.”

It does paint a worrying picture for spinners in Australia, too, considering it’s long been a crucial part of any team wearing the baggy green. Lyon’s long been a mainstay in the squad, while Shane Warne, Richie Benaud, Stuart MacGill, and Bill O’Reilly are regularly put into conversations about the best bowlers that Australia has ever run out in their starting XIs.

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There have been plenty who’ve lambasted the call immediately, though, including former Aussie tweaker Kerry O’Keeffe, who said he’d be “taking the selection panel to the Hague” for their decision. “I’m going to the highest court in the world,” he (only half) joked. “I’ve seen both Sheffield Shield games on this strip this year. It spun, it’s been bouncing for the spinners. Murphy is a quality bowler; he deserves to play at the SCG. I will be bereft if Australia go in without a specialist spinner in this match.”

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Others, like four-Test leg-spinner Mitch Swepson, simply declared, “It sucks, mate. I won’t be careful, it sucks.” He went on to warn that spin may die as a cricket art form if it keeps getting left on the pine. “I’d love to see it come back,” he added.