recruited from Brisbane Heat last season<\/a>, with the pair having previously toured India together in 2023 when Murphy made his Test debut.<\/p>\n“I feel like we’ll complement each other really well and spin it different ways, so hopefully we can be a spin threat at the ‘G,” Murphy said after putting pen to paper with the Stars.<\/p>\n
“‘Sweppo’ has always been really giving with his time, even when we’ve played Sheffield Shield or one-day cricket against each other, so I’m really keen on evolving that relationship and getting to work together.<\/p>\n
Stars claim three in seven balls to seize control<\/p>\n
“It feels like really good timing personally to come back home (to Melbourne) and getting to play at the MCG is always exciting.”<\/p>\n
After a tough final season with the Heat in BBL|14, Swepson produced his second-most productive BBL campaign in five years after joining the Stars last season. His eight wickets at an economy rate of 7.3 helped the Stars clinch a second straight finals berth.<\/p>\n
Murphy, meanwhile, was often an auxiliary spinner in a strong Sixers bowling attack, initially biding his time behind veteran left-armer Steve O’Keefe before more recently being leapfrogged by rising star Joel Davies, who has been included in Australia’s one-day squad for their coming Africa tour.<\/p>\n
The off-spinner played just two games last season and coughed up almost 14 runs per over for his two wickets, which took his Sixers tally to 21 from 30 appearances.<\/p>\n
Murphy was included but uncapped in Australia’s ODI squad for series in Bangladesh and Pakistan earlier this year and harbours white-ball ambitions at international level, hoping to push his case during the one-day series against India A next month.<\/p>\n
In Case You Don’t Know Me: Todd Murphy<\/p>\n
He also enjoyed a strong Top End T20 tournament for a Victorian Academy side last month with seven wickets in five matches.<\/p>\n
“I’m just (looking to) evolve a little bit with the different formats; I guess you’re just bowling different balls more regularly in white-ball cricket and trying to stay a step ahead of the batter is probably the main thing,” Murphy said.<\/p>\n
“(Ball flight) is fractionally flatter and faster and then going up and down the gears to try and use that as a variation.”<\/p>\n
Murphy is the first addition to new Stars coach Cameron White’s roster for the upcoming season after a league-wide contracting embargo was lifted last week.<\/p>\n
But his availability for the second half of BBL|16 will hinge on whether he is picked in Australia’s Test squad to tour India in January and February, a distinct possibility given he was awarded a national contract in March and is also part of Australia A’s red-ball tour of India later this month.<\/p>\n
And Murphy, who played his last Test in Sri Lanka in January last year, has become well equipped at fine tuning his skills for the longer format while navigating a Big Bash season.<\/p>\n
“I definitely want to be involved in BBL and play it when I can, so I was really keen on trying to lock a deal in to make sure I was playing and then let the other stuff (Test selection) take care of itself,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I actually feel the way I bowl in BBL with (my ball flight) being fractionally flatter and (with a) squarer (seam position) aligns quite well with subcontinent conditions.<\/p>\n
“So, although it’s a slightly different trajectory, I think it still does give me quite a good grounding of how I’ll potentially want to bowl going over there.”<\/p>\n
Melbourne Stars BBL|16 squad (so far): Austin Anlezark (contracted until BBL|16), Hilton Cartwright (BBL|17), Sam Harper (BBL|17), Liam Hatcher (BBL|16), Campbell Kellaway (BBL|17), Glenn Maxwell (BBL|17), Todd Murphy (BBL|16), Tom Rogers (BBL|16), Peter Siddle (BBL|16), Marcus Stoinis (BBL|16), Mitch Swepson (BBL|17)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Uncontracted:\u00a0Scott Boland, Joe Clarke (England), Tom Curran (England), Sam Hain (England), Blake Macdonald, Hamish McKenzie, Jon Merlo, Haris Rauf (Pakistan),\u00a0Aryan Sharma, Mark Steketee, Tom Whitney<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Head coach:\u00a0Cameron White<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victorian Todd Murphy will partner leggie Mitch Swepson in BBL|16 after signing with the Stars Todd Murphy’s best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":879181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85,83],"class_list":["post-879180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=879180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/879181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}