JASON GILLESPIE: Todd Murphy is still a kid but he is capable of stepping in for injured Nathan Lyon

Nathan Lyon looks unlikely to play again in this series and losing a spinner who has taken 496 Test wickets is obviously a massive blow for Australia.

What that means going into day five of this match is that they will have to bowl without a frontline spinner, which gives England a fighting chance. But looking ahead to the next Test at Headingley, we will see Todd Murphy come into the side – and Australia fans can be assured that he is the real deal.

He has already shown that he is more than capable of performing at this level. He got seven wickets in the first innings of his Test debut in India and he was excellent.

At 22 years old, he is still a kid. He is a bit wet behind the ears in first-class experience, let alone international experience. He played his age-group cricket as a batsman and only developed as a spinner in the last five years, so he has had quite a rise.

But there have been a lot of very good judges around Australia, particularly in Victoria, who have been talking him up as a quality option for quite some time.

Todd Murphy is more than capable of filling in for his injured team-mate at Headingley 

Nathan Lyon received a standing ovation at Lord’s after coming out to bat

Despite suffering a significant calf injury, Lyon walked out to face the England attack

I have seen him up close playing in the Sheffield Shield against my South Australia side and you can tell he has got an old head on young shoulders. He is picking up things so fast.

On the last couple of tours, he has had Nathan with him the whole time and there is no better bowler for him to learn from. He’s also got Daniel Vettori as an assistant coach of Australia, who will have acted as another mentor.

He is a slightly different bowler to Nathan. Whereas Nathan relies more on over spin and bounce, Todd uses more side spin and looks to give it a rip.

I am gutted for Nathan because this was his 100th consecutive Test and he could have got his 500th Test wicket. He has shown such resilience in his career, as we all saw with the way he came out to bat in Australia’s second innings, despite his significant calf injury.

Nathan is far from finished and I am sure he will return as Australia’s No1 spinner as soon as he is back fit. But this gives Todd another taste of international cricket and he will do a fine job for Australia going forward. He won’t be overawed.

If the surface is the same in Leeds as it has been at Lord’s, we can also expect to see more short-pitch bowling from the seamers. Both teams have heavily resorted to that tactic here because they have identified that this surface offers next to nothing for the fast bowlers.

In England’s first innings, Australia were in the last-chance saloon when Nathan went down and that was the only plan they had left. England were absolutely flying but they then gifted them wickets.

Yes, I know they want to play positively, but if they had just absorbed some of that bowling, Australia would have to have changed tack. Instead, they allowed their opponents back into the game.

Murphy has had Lyon with him on a number of previous tours to act as something of a mentor

The off-spinner took seven wickets in his first innings of Test cricket against India 

Australia also fell for the same trap on Saturday and I am not sure either team have quite got their tactics right yet.

One point of difference for Australia, though, has been the speed of their bowlers. I have been impressed with Josh Tongue for England. 

He has got that extra yard of pace on Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad and Ollie Robinson, who are all very similar. But the Aussie quicks are by and large quicker than the English seamers, in particular Mitchell Starc.

I said at the time I would have played him at Edgbaston and he would have been well suited to that surface. But they were right to select him over Scott Boland for this Test and his dismissals of Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope last night proved just what a difference he can make.