Off-spinner takes four wickets on his 24th birthday to help roll reigning Shield champions for 167

Todd Murphy has laid down a marker in his Sheffield Shield showdown with Western Australia’s Corey Rocchiccioli to give Victoria the upper hand after day one at Junction Oval.

Murphy’s four wickets vindicated captain Peter Handscomb’s decision to bowl first with WA dismissed for 167 immediately prior to the tea interval.

Victoria have lost their last three Shield matches against the three-time reigning champions with the two states building a fierce rivalry over the past three seasons after playing off in the first two of those finals.

The rivalry has run concurrently with the rise of off-spinners Murphy and Rocchiccioli who are both vying for a berth on next year’s Test tour of Sri Lanka to partner veteran Nathan Lyon.

The West Australian tweaker struck back late in the day to leave Victoria 2-100 at stumps, trailing the visitors by 67. The experience duo of Marcus Harris (40 not out) and Peter Handscomb (26no) will resume in the morning.

Cameron Bancroft’s horror start to the summer continued when he was trapped plumb lbw by Australia A teammate Fergus O’Neill for 12 after earlier being dropped at third slip by Harris.

Opener Sam Fanning (34 from 47 balls), filling in for injured skipper Sam Whiteman (side strain) for a second straight match, had given WA a nice platform with a series of sweetly timed drives before Murphy entered the fray.

Fresh off his career-best white-ball figures of 4-27 in the One-Day Cup match two days earlier, Murphy struck with his second delivery of the day when Fanning gloved an attempted sweep shot that was smartly pouched down the leg side by wicketkeeper Sam Harper.

It was an early gift for the right-armer today celebrating his 24th birthday, and he returned later in the innings to put the icing on the cake with three of the last four WA wickets to finish with 4-37 from 15 overs.

Murphy and Rocchiccioli both performed strongly for the Aussies in the recent ‘A’ series against India A with Murphy grabbing four wickets in the opening match in Mackay before being replaced by Rocchiccioli for the second who captured 1-21 and 4-74 at the MCG.

“Anytime you can get yourself in the game on day one is pleasing and it’s nice to walk off the ground with four wickets,” Murphy said at stumps on day one.

“The most pleasing part from Mackay to the MCG (for the one-dayer) and today, there’s been different conditions each time.

“To be able to adapt to that quickly and still find a way to have some success has been pleasing and probably shows what I’m doing at the moment is working and I’m confident.

“When you bowl (first) the aim is to bowl a side out so to do that around tea time and for the total we did is very pleasing.”

Third-gamer Xavier Crone chipped in two wickets including that of dangerman Hilton Cartwright (10), who fresh off 153 in last week’s win against Tasmania, picked out O’Neill at gully with a crisply struck cut shot.

O’Neill finished with 3-43 and ageless seamer Peter Siddle 1-29 with ‘keeper Joel Curtis the only other WA batter to get going in an innings-high 36.

By stumps, Harris and Handscomb had eaten into more than half of the deficit as the left-hander set about moving on from the disappointment of being overlooked for a Test recall once again.

He looked particularly at ease against the pace of former Victorian speedster Brody Couch who he cut through and over the slip cordon before crunching a sublime back foot cover drive to complete a hat-trick of consecutive boundaries.

“That’s probably the class of ‘Harry’ (Harris) … he obviously would have been bitterly disappointed it wasn’t him that got selected,” Murphy said.

“I know he’s done a power of work to get himself in the frame. He’s played some really good innings for us, and I think he’s going to be hungry to keep pushing his case.”

WA missed a chance to remove Harris with two overs remaining in the day when he clipped a full toss that Ashton Agar grassed at midwicket, while the final ball of day one saw him playing and missing a Rocchiccioli delivery that narrowly missed the opener’s off stump.

Cameron Gannon was the other WA wicket-taker on day one with a beautiful inswinger that bowled Ashley Chandrasinghe for five.

Sheffield Shield standings 2024-25

Team	Matches played M	Wins W	Losses L	Drawn D	No results N/R	Deductions Ded.	Batting Bonus Bat	Bowling Bonus Bowl	Total points PTS
1 Western Australia Men WA	3	2	0	1	0	0	3.85	2.4	19.25
2 South Australia Men SA	3	2	0	1	0	0	2.64	3	18.64
3 Victoria Men VIC	3	1	1	1	0	0	2.54	2.4	11.94
4 Queensland Bulls QLD	3	0	1	2	0	0	2.84	2.6	7.44
5 NSW Men NSW	3	0	1	2	0	0	2.05	2.3	6.35
6 Tasmanian Tigers Men TAS	3	0	2	1	0	0	2.8	2.2	6

Legend

M: Matches played

W: Wins

L: Losses

D: Drawn

N/R: No results

Ded.: Deductions

Bat: Batting Bonus

Bowl: Bowling Bonus

PTS: Total points