It’s hard capturing attention when you’re a humble off-spinner in a team of stars who can bowl lightning pace or bat their way into the headlines with world-class skill.
Unfashionable down to the ground, Nathan Lyon has never been a box-office drawcard but the way he’s going, he could very well end up the third-most prolific spinner of all time.
Lyon’s understated but by no means underestimated match haul of 4-31 off a combined 14 overs in the first Test win over South Africa in Brisbane brings his career tally to 454 from 113 matches.
The 35-year-old Test specialist, who hasn’t played a white-ball match for Australia since 2019, is showing no signs of slowing down despite being well and truly in the veteran class.
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It’s a sign of the respect he commands that unlike some of his contemporaries in the three national squads around the same age, there has been not a whisper about Lyon perhaps getting too long in the tooth or that it’s time to groom the next top-line tweaker in the Test arena.
(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
Queensland leg-spinner Mitchell Swepson has partnered Lyon in four Tests on the subcontinent this year and rising stars Todd Murphy and Tanveer Sangha are viewed as future prospects for the national team but Lyon, as he’s always done, keeps on keeping on with a minimum of fuss.
The secret to his success is his clinical precision he has to his craft. In an age of doosras, different grips, arm balls and all manner of variations, Lyon has stuck to what works best for him – devotion to pitching an off break just outside the line of the stumps, turning it back into right-handers or away from the lefties.
It may seem simplistic but it would be wrong to describe it thus. There’s nothing simple about the science Lyon brings to the bowling crease. Whereas leggies are renowned for being a bit out there, temperamental artists, the off-spinner is a tradesman more concerned with angles and percentages than the dark arts of those who bowl unnaturally over the wrist.
Lyon has also been one of Australian cricket’s iron men.
Of the 117 Tests that Australia have contested since his debut in 2011, he has missed just four.
(Ashley Vlotman/Gallo Images/Getty Images)
The first time was in Perth the following year when Australia went with a quartet of quicks, in Hyderabad in 2013 when Glenn Maxwell and Xavier Doherty shared the spin duties with limited success and the opening two matches of the Ashes tour a couple of months later when Ashton Agar was preferred.
In the 91 Tests since, the Lyon surname is the only one to have been on every scorecard.
His streak of matches without a break places him fourth on Australia’s all-time list behind Adam Gilchrist (96), Mark Waugh (107) and Allan Border (156).
Barring injury, he will overtake Gilchrist at the end of the four-Test tour of India in March.
And it’s that durability which gives Lyon a chance to also finish among the top three spinners in Test history by the time he finally decides to put his right index finger on ice.
With Australia playing 40 Tests over the next five years, the NSW tweaker could go close to overhauling Indian legend Anil Kumble’s 619. Spin kings Muttiah Muralitharan (800) and Shane Warne (708) will remain well out of Lyon’s grasp.
(Photo by Hamish Blair/Getty Images)
Interestingly, Warne could drop to third among all bowlers next year during the Ashes with ageless England seamer James Anderson only 33 behind him. Anderson intends to go on the two-Test trip to New Zealand in February and potentially has another match against Ireland before the Ashes to close the gap on Australia’s late, great icon.
India’s Ravi Ashwin is 11 wickets adrift of Lyon but a year older and has only played more than five Tests in a calendar year once since 2018 as other spinners have gained favour.
While plenty was made about the Gabba greentop’s super-charged assistance for the seamers last weekend, Lyon also took advantage of the thick grass cover, particularly in the first innings.
His dismissal of tailender Anrich Nortje was a rare example of Lyon extracting vicious bounce and turn from a wicket and the South African was unable to prevent the ball jagging back into his glove for Travis Head to snare the catch close to the pitch.
A rare snapshot of Test cricket where the supposedly harmless off-spinner rendered the thunderous fast bowler powerless.
Lyon and the other bowlers won’t get nearly as much help from the MCG wicket when the second Test gets underway on Boxing Day.
Lyon’s Melbourne record is about par with his overall Test numbers – 37 wickets from 11 outings at 31.83 (he averages 31.56 overall and 31.28 in Australia).
However, South Africa are one of the few countries that have caused him trouble – he has taken a comparatively low 50 wickets from 16 clashes and his average (39.52) and strike rate (78.7 compared with his career mark of 64.3) blow out against the Proteas even accounting for last week’s rapid haul.
Lyon’s opposite number, Keshav Meharaj, was only used for two overs in Australia’s first innings in Brisbane, which could have been a tactical error from Dean Elgar given Lyon’s success on the seaming deck.
Theunis de Bruyn is a chance of earning a recall for the MCG Test after he was unlucky to miss the cut at the Gabba after posting 88 in their warm-up fixture against the Cricket Australia XI.
Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe – CA/Cricket Australia via Getty Images)
But he only averages 19.45 in his 12 Tests so even if he replaces Rassie van der Dussen, who went for five and a duck from a combined two overs, the Proteas’ batters will still be under the pump.
In their past six innings, the team total has not cracked 200 with 151 and 179, then 118 and 169 in England followed by the paltry efforts of 152 and 99 in Queensland.
“I know he is a guy who you can bring in potentially who is going to give us that extra boost,” Elgar told reporters in Brisbane on Tuesday about de Bruyn.
“The option of the seven batters and four bowlers was very much a talking point but I like having a specialist spinner. (Maharaj) gives us a lot of control and allows our seamers to get an extra break.
“All options are on the table going into the next one. You have to be open minded because you have to make the right decision for the specific game.”
To make matters worse for the struggling Proteas batters, they’ll be facing a bowling attack that has the luxury to leave out Josh Hazlewood, Scott Boland or perhaps Mitchell Starc.
And then, as he’s done for more than a decade, Lyon will join the hunt as he continues his rise up the honour roll of Test cricket’s greatest kings of the jungle.
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