1st Test: Bowling in Sri Lanka On ‘A’ Tour Gave Me Confidence, Says Australia’s Murphy After Fifer vs India
Talking wickets in India and against Indian batters is a huge challenge for a spinner, especially those from abroad. However, Australia’s Todd Murphy made the most of the opportunity, making a dream debut with a maiden five-wicket haul in the first Test against India at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium here on Friday.
1st Test: Bowling in Sri Lanka On ‘A’ Tour Gave Me Confidence, Says Australia’s Murphy After Fifer vs India. (Image: Twitter)
Nagpur, Feb 10: Talking wickets in India and against Indian batters is a huge challenge for a spinner, especially those from abroad. However, Australia’s Todd Murphy made the most of the opportunity, making a dream debut with a maiden five-wicket haul in the first Test against India at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium here on Friday.
Bowling a consistent line and length and at a right pace, Murphy claimed 5/82 in India’s first innings, becoming the 17th Australian bowler and sixth spinner to claim a fifer on debut.
Murphy’s brilliant bowling helped Australia restrict India to 321/7 in their first innings at stumps on Day 2. The hosts though have a lead of 144 runs and will be pressing to extend it further on Saturday.
The off-spinner said it was a great experience to claim five wickets on debut and he had never hoped of such a thing when he got a surprise call for the India tour.
“Yeah, it’s been a pretty special couple of days and I supposed to top it off today with a fifer and they would probably yeah, more than I could ever hope for. And yeah, it’s gonna be something that I’ll look back on the rest of my life and be really proud of,” Murphy said at the post-play press conference at the VCA Stadium, here on Friday.
Murphy said playing in Sri Lanka with Australia A team last year gave him the confidence, which has resulted in him becoming a Test bowler. The 22-year old was getting ready to play club cricket in Darwin nice months back, unable to make his stateside. He admitted it has been a quick journey for him.
“Probably one of the biggest things for me was getting to go to Sri Lanka and being on that ‘A’ tour and had a little bit of success over there. I think that probably gave me the confidence that I needed going back to Australia that I was good enough to keep mixing it with first class cricketers.
So, you know, I think that trip away with, yeah being around some of the guys that have played Test cricket. We’re sort of observing everything and competing at the nets and then bowing together. I think I took a lot of confidence out of that and reflected and sort of went back and just, yeah, trusted myself a bit more and thought what I’ve got can be good enough,” said Murphy.
Asked about the experience of bowling to the Indian batters who are considered best players of spin, Murphy said he has not bowled to players from other countries to know the difference.
The spinner said one thing he noticed was that the Indian batters use their wrist a lot. He said it was a big challenge bowling to the Indian batters.
“They use their hands really well. They get their hands out in front and yeah, they got a lot of scoring options too. So always, yeah, really difficult challenge there and yeah, it was quite tough,” said Murphy.
: With growth expected to continue for Indian manufacturing sector in Jan-March Q-4 2022-23, there are signs that cost pressure witnessed in the last many months seems to be softening a bit for the sector, notes latest FICCI Manufacturing Survey.
FICCI’s latest quarterly survey on Manufacturing reveals that after experiencing revival of Indian economy in the FY 2021-22, momentum of growth has continued for the subsequent quarters of FY 2022-23 with some temporary effect of global slowdown on Indian manufacturing. In the Q3 Oct-Dec FY 2022-23, 58% of the respondents reported higher production levels. Growth outlook continues, though lower sequentially. Further, around 50% of the respondents expect a higher level of production in Q4 Jan-Mar 2022-23 with an average increase in production in double digits. This assessment is also reflective in order books as 52% of the respondents in Q-3 Oct-Dec 2022-23 have had higher number of orders and demand conditions continue to be optimistic in Q-4 too.
There seems to be some softening of cost pressures on manufacturers in Q-4 note FICCI survey. The cost of production as a percentage of sales for manufacturers in the survey has risen for 73% respondents, which is lower than 94% as reported in previous survey. Nonetheless, high raw material prices especially that of steel, increased transportation, logistics and freight cost, and rise in the prices of crude oil and fuel have been the main contributors to increasing cost of production. Other factors responsible for escalating production costs include enhanced labor costs, high cost of carrying inventory, and fluctuation in the foreign exchange rate.
Figure: % of Respondents Expecting Higher Production in the Quarter
vis-à-vis Respective Last Year’s Quarter
Source FICCI Survey
FICCI’s latest quarterly survey assessed the sentiments of manufacturers for Q-4 Jan-March (2022-23) for eleven major sectors namely Automotive & Auto Components, Capital Goods, Cement, Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals, Electronics, Machine Tools, Metal & Metal Products, Paper Products, Petrochemicals & Fertilizers, Textiles, Apparels & Technical Textiles, Textile Machinery and Miscellaneous. Responses have been drawn from over 400 manufacturing units from both large and SME segments with a combined annual turnover of over Rs. 10 lakh crores.
Capacity Addition & Utilization
The existing average capacity utilization in manufacturing is around 75% which reflects a sustained economic activity in the sector. In fact, this is more than 70% capacity utilization reported for previous survey.
The future investment outlook has also improved as compared to previous quarter as over 47% respondents reported plans for investments and expansions in the coming six months. This is also an improvement over the previous survey where only 40% reported plans for investments in next six months. The table below, gives average capacity utilization for various sub-sectors of manufacturing.
Table: Current Average Capacity Utilization Levels as Reported in Survey (%)
Sector
Average Capacity Utilization
Automotive & Automotive Components
80%
Capital Goods
81%
Cement
75%
Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals
67%
Electronics
79%
Machine Tools
65%
Metals & Metal Products
67%
Paper Products
95%
Petrochemicals & Fertilizers
95%
Textiles
73%
Textile Machinery
85%
Miscellaneous
74%
However, global economic uncertainty caused by the Russia-Ukraine warand increasing cases of various mutations of COVID virus in other countries continue added to volatilities in supply chain and demand.
Increased cost of finance, cumbersome regulations and clearances, high logistics cost due to high fuel prices, low global demand, high volume of cheap imports into India, shortage of skilled labor, highly volatile prices of certain metals etc. and other supply chain disruptions are some of the major constraints which are affecting expansion plans of the respondents.
Inventories
87% of the respondents had either more or same level of inventory in Q-3 Oct-December 2022-23, which is equivalent to that of the previous quarter. In Q-4 Jan-March 2022-23, about 90% of the respondents are expecting higher or same level of inventory.
Exports
The outlook for exports seems to be waning as about 36% of the respondents reported higher exports in Q-3 Oct-Dec 2022-23 as compared to the Q3 Oct-Dec of FY 2021-22. Furthermore, only about 30% of the respondents expect their exports to be higher in Q4 Jan-Mar 2022-23 as compared to Q4 Jan-Mar 2021-22.
Hiring
Hiring outlook though positive, remains below potential as only 32% of the respondents were looking at hiring additional workforce in the next three months.
Interest Rate
Average interest rate paid by the manufacturers has increased to 9.38% p.a. as against 8.37% p.a. during last quarter and the highest rate at which loan has been raised is 15% p.a. Over 71% of the respondents have reported that increase in repo rates in the last few months has led to a consequential increase in the lending rate by their banks, thereby increasing their cost of borrowing.
Sectoral Growth
Based on expectations, Auto, Capital Goods, Cement, Electronics & Petrochemicals & Fertilizers sectors are poised to see a strong growth. Rest all the sectors are expected to register moderate to low growth in Q-4 2022-23 as given in the table below.
Table: Growth expectations for Q-4 2022-23 compared with Q-4 2021-22
