10 Facts about Australia’s premier spinner Nathan Lyon

The off-spinner Nathan Lyon has had a remarkable rise in Australian cricket. His performances in T20’s for South Australia earned him a First-Class debut, and within seven months a Test cap. After a long search for a regular No.1 spinner in the post-Shane Warne era, Australia has finally found what they were looking for. A classical offspinner, Lyon flights the ball and looks for wickets and has been fairly successful thus far. Lyon has become Australia’s most successful Test off-spinner of all time, passing Hugh Trumble’s tally of 141 wickets.

1. Birth:                

Nathan Lyon was born on 20th November, 1987 in NSW, Australia.

2. Age group cricket:

Lyon played for ACT Cricket’s under-17s and under-19s representative teams. He then played for Western Districts and University of Canberra Cricket Club in Grade cricket and debuted for the ACT Comets in 2008 in the Cricket Australia Cup against the South Australian Second XI. Comets captain Higgs helped him immensely in his spin bowling.

3. Early Impressions:

Lyon showed his ability as a net bowler while working as a curator’s assistant at the Adelaide Oval and impressed the Redbacks’ Big Bash coach Darren Berry. With 11 wickets, he was the joint highest wicket-taker in the Big Bash League 2010-11. He impressed the Australian selectors with his control and ability to bowl in pressure situations. His team Redbacks went on to win the competition. He made his List A and First-Class debut in February 2011 and his consistent performances got him selected in the Australian Test squad for the tour to Sri Lanka in the same year.

4. Test debut:

Lyon took his first wicket off his first ball in Test Cricket and his victim was the Lankan legend Kumar Sangakkara. This match was played at Galle and started on 31st August 2011. He finished with 5/34 in his first innings and thus became the 131st player to take five wickets on debut in a Test match. Australia won this match by 125 runs.

5. Memorable first match at home:

His first Test in Australia was at the Gabba starting on 1 December 2011 against New Zealand in the first match of the series. He took 4/69 in the first innings and 3/19 in his second innings and his match figures of 7/88 helped the Aussies win by 9 wickets.

6. A minor setback:

In 2013 he was dropped twice from the Test team; first in India after he was hammered by MS Dhoni in the first Test in Chennai, and then for the first two Tests of the Ashes tour of England. The Ashes axing was surprising since he had taken nine wickets in his previous Test, the fourth and final Test of the Indian tour in Delhi. By the third Test of the Ashes, Lyon was back in the side and continued his good work. In the Test at Chester-le-Street, he took figures of 4/42 on the first day which helped his team restrict England to 238 in their first innings.

7. The Boxing Day Test:

On 28 December 2013, during the Boxing Day Test match at the MCG, Lyon took his 100th Test wicket and also his first five-wicket haul in Australia thus becoming the sixth Australian off-spinner to take 100 Test wickets.

8. First Man-of-the-Match performance:

In a closely contested first Test of the Border–Gavaskar Trophy series against India at the Adelaide Oval, Lyon’s personal best haul for the match of 5 for 134 in the first innings and 7 for 152 in the second helped the home side win the match by 48 runs. This became his first Man-of-the-Match performance.

9. A touching gesture:

After taking the final wicket in the above-mentioned Test, Lyon knelt down patting Phil Hughes’s Test number 408 that had been painted on the field for the match. This was the first match the Australian team had played after the passing of Phillip Hughes just two weeks earlier.

10. International Statistics:

Lyon has played 59 Tests taking 213 wickets with a career-best spell in an innings of 7/94 against India at Delhi. He has taken 7 five wicket hauls in the longest format of the game.

He has played just 13 ODIs since the Australian selectors have considered him a Test specialist. He has taken 17 wickets with a career best spell of 4/44 against Zimbabwe at Harare. He has never played a T20I for his country.

Lyon is only the second cricketer ever to not be dismissed in any innings during a five-Test series. He achieved this in January 2014. A stubborn tail-ender, Lyon has scored 458 Test runs with a top score of 40* against the West Indies in 2012 batting at number 11.