Our new spin wonder has probably never heard of the dubious cricket figure who beat him to the title as the first “Todd” to represent Australia.

Before Victorian Todd Murphy was even born, cricket lovers celebrated the deeds of a cricketer who revelled in bringing the game into disrepute.

Whether it was going the tonk or racking up enough fines to shout an entire Gabba grandstand on the opening day of a Test, the adventures of Warwick Todd were the central theme of three books.

His tour diaries fitting easily between those put out by Steve Waugh, Mark Taylor and Co during the cricket book boom except for one thing.

He was a mythical figure created by comedian Tom Gleisner, now the host of Channel 10’s popular panel show, Have You Been Paying Attention?

That didn’t stop Gleisner inserting Todd into the Test batting order with Ricky Ponting, sledging relentlessly, nightclubbing with the best of them and exaggerating anything he thought would win a laugh.

“Actually, ‘Toddy’ racked up more than $25,000 in fines during his career and there are suspended fines hanging over his head until 2030 if he decides on a comeback,” Gleisner told me.

“He worked out long ago that, if you really want to make an impact, you have to sledge the match referee.”

His irreverence had no boundaries and certain players were convinced he had a mole in the Australian team so good was his information on tour tales.

The tour diaries dripped with satire.

On dodgy bookies, he wrote: “It was alleged I was seen with a well-dressed Indian gentleman in a lobby in Mumbai. That’s total rubbish because there’s no such thing as a well-dressed Indian. I told the bloke where to go…to Mark Waugh’s room.”

On Glenn McGrath’s batting: “The problem with Glenn is a concentration span of just 20 seconds. If you start using big words or verbs, you lose him. Really, you can only strap on his pads and shove him out there.”

You can imagine he had some misgivings about meeting the actual Australian cricket team at a function in Brisbane.

He need not have worried. He had a cult following within the team. During the 1997-98 summer, one player even submitted a mock urine sample for a drug test with the jar marked “W Todd.” It was filled with beer.

Then-Test cricketers Damien Fleming, Michael Kasprowicz and Stuart MacGill all bought one of his books and had him autograph it.

Why “Warwick Todd”? Gleisner liked “Warwick” as “a classic bogan sort of name” and “Todd” was borrowed from the poncey first name of tennis star Todd Woodbridge.

The hope is you might have raised a chuckle or at least a smirk at recounting this long lost Todd.

He summed up the wider sense of fun in the game which, sadly, seems missing today.

Perhaps, it’s more the sense of exploring that is missing.

The likes of Jeff Thomson and Rodney Hogg are still riveting guest speakers at luncheons who spin one funny cricket story after another. Both are in their 70s.

It’s a struggle to imagine Steve Smith even wanting to do similar once his multi-million dollar career is over.

It’s just as well opener Usman Khawaja’s personality is flourishing in this latest phase of his career because we can actually see how much he enjoys the game.

Whether it’s his dance steps when reaching a century or his classic tweet when his visa was held-up for the tour of India, he has become the team’s most engaging figure.

Usman Khawaja takes to Instagram to explain his visa troubles.

Thank goodness for Marnus Labuschagne and his eccentricities. He’s channelling actor Lindsay Lohan for the second Test starting in Delhi on Friday.

It’s a rhyming slang trigger…Lohan as in “low hands.” His “Lindsay” mutterings in the nets pre-Test were about reminding himself to keep his hands low and out of the way when playing the Indian spinners.

As for getting out on the streets of Nagpur or Delhi. Forget it.

Today, a tour of India is the ground, the nets and a hotel compound where the team has set up a full golf simulator. The players will also be scorning chai for a coffee from Labuschagne’s imported coffee machine.

There’s no chance of a life-changing moment like that experienced by former skipper Steve Waugh in Kolkata in 1996.

His brief and precious meeting with Mother Theresa in her Home for the Dying sparked something within him that led to his decades-long support for an orphanage outside the city.

The moment with Mother Theresa was so profound that the Indian bodyguard assigned to Waugh for the visit fainted so overwhelmed was he in her presence.

It’s impossible to get a grip on how much Indians love their cricket. Big crowds are massive. There’s no such thing as a lone autograph seeker. They hunt in posses.

Former Test batsman Mark Waugh was once eating in a restaurant in Chennai and he had a crowd of four or five. “They were watching me eat as if it was a sporting event,” Waugh wondered.

Allan Border still smiles at how an Indian tour is like no other and that Australian captains were never spared the pitfalls of the regular tourist.

On Border’s 1979 tour, captain Kim Hughes was bamboozled by a shopkeeper with more wiles than Ravi Ashwin.

The shopkeeper convinced Hughes he would sell him the chess set that he declined to part with when American rich-lister Nelson Rockefeller had supposedly visited the store.

He was the Australian captain after all and deserved such regard.

It was a con but Hughes parted with around $1000. The first little tusk of the hand-carved ivory chess set of ornamental elephants and such started falling off that night.

Touring India was always about surviving such wrong ‘uns off the field as well as on.

Hopefully, the Australians can muster something far better in this second Test in Delhi after the shambles of Nagpur.

From that first Test, only new off-spinner Todd Murphy really emerged with head high. If he enjoys some of the cricket life that namesake Warwick Todd did, he’ll have the full experience of a Test cricketer.

JIM TUCKER has specialised in sport, the wider impacts and features for most of his 40 years writing in the media. He enjoyed two tours of India as a cricket writer.