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

Todd Murphy set a milestone in his Sheffield Shield showdown with West 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 before the tea interval.

Victoria have lost their last three Shield matches against the three-time defending champions, with the two states having built a fierce rivalry over the past three seasons after contesting the first two of those finals.

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

The West Australian tweaker fought back late in the day to leave Victoria 2-100 at stumps, trailing the visitors by 67. The experienced duo of Marcus Harris (40 not out) and Peter Handscomb (26 not out) will resume in the morning .

Cameron Bancroft’s early summer horror continued when he was trapped underweight by Australian teammate Fergus O’Neill for 12 after being dropped at third slip by Harris.

Opener Sam Fanning (34 off 47 balls), replacing injured skipper Sam Whiteman (side strain) for a second successive match, had given WA a fine platform with a series of well-timed drives before Murphy enters the fray.

Fresh from his career-best white-ball score of 4-27 in the One-Day Cup match two days earlier, Murphy struck with his second delivery of the day when Fanning gloved a sweeping shot attempt which was smartly driven down the leg side by wicketkeeper Sam Harper.

It was an early gift for the right-armer celebrating his 24th birthday today, 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 well for the Australians in the recent ‘A’ series against India A, with Murphy taking 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 into the game on the first day, it’s nice and it’s nice to come away from the ground with four wickets,” Murphy told Stumps on the first day.

“Mackay’s most enjoyable game at the MCG (for a day) and today it was different conditions each time.

“Being able to quickly adapt to that while still finding a way to be successful has been nice and probably shows that what I’m doing right now is working and that I’m confident.

“When you bowl (first) the aim is to play one side, so to do it at tea time and for the total we made, it’s very pleasing.”

Third bowler Xavier Crone scored two wickets, including that of the dangerous Hilton Cartwright (10), who had just scored 153 in last week’s win over Tasmania, spotted O’Neill at gully with a perfectly 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 pitch in a game-high 36 innings.

By stumps, Harris and Handscomb had eaten up more than half the deficit as the left-hander began to emerge from the disappointment of being overlooked for a Test recall again.

He looked particularly comfortable against the pace of former Victorian speedster Brody Couch as he drove through and over the slip cordon before delivering a sublime back-foot cover to complete a hat-trick of consecutive boundaries.

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

“I know he’s done a lot 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 continue to make his case.”

WA missed an opportunity to remove Harris with two overs remaining in the day when he bowled a full toss which Ashton Agar grassed to mid-wicket, while the last ball of the first day saw him bowled and missing a delivery from Rocchiccioli which narrowly missed the opener’s stump.

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

Sheffield Shields standings 2024-25

Team	Matches played M	Victories W	Losses L	Drawn D	No results N/R	Deductions Ded.	Batting Bonus Bat	Bowling bonuses Bowl	Total points SPT
1 Western Australia Men Washington	3	2	0	1	0	0	3.85	2.4	7:25 p.m.
2 South Australia Men ITS	3	2	0	1	0	0	2.64	3	18.64
3 Victoria Men CIV	3	1	1	1	0	0	2.54	2.4	11.94
4 Queensland Bulls Queensland	3	0	1	2	0	0	2.84	2.6	7.44
5 New South Wales men New South Wales	3	0	1	2	0	0	2.05	2.3	6:35 a.m.
6 Tasmanian Tigers Men TAS	3	0	2	1	0	0	2.8	2.2	6

Legend

M: Matches played

W: Victories

L : Losses

D: Drawn

N/A: No results

Ded. : Deductions

Bat: Batting Bonus

Bowl: Bowling bonuses

PLEASE : Total points