I am proud of our bowling unit: Nathan Lyon

Australia had a good start to day 2 of the Dharamsala Test getting rid of the stubborn Murali Vijay quite early in the inning. But once again there was a phase where the bat had the dominating say in the game and India were back in the game with KL Rahul and Cheteshwar Pujara scoring half centuries. But in the last session off-spinner, Nathan Lyon bowled excellent lines, pushed with the attack and picked up 4 key wickets.

India were looking to play off the overs and thus didn’t go behind the spinners for most part of the day, thus the scoreboard was not quite cruising. This gave Australia a real chance to bounce back and seize the momentum. Lyon who had troubles with his spinning finger in the previous Test has recovered fully and extracted surprising bounce to fox the Indian batters today.

He got rid of Pujara in the very first over after tea, followed it up with the wicket of Karun Nair who has just managed starts in this series. Later in the spell he also sent back Indian skipper Ajinkya Rahane with another beauty and towards the end dismissed Ravi Ashwin hitting him in front.

“(Enjoyed) Each and everyone of them (wickets). Just brilliant to bowl in partnerships. I thought we were brilliant with the ball. It was a pretty good effort to restrict them to 240-odd. In the first couple of sessions it didn’t do much. It started doing as the day progressed; spinning and a lot more bounce. There are similarities to the Bangalore wicket. It has been up and down.” Lyon said after the end of day’s play at the HPCA Stadium.

That said, he also believes that Australia will need to pluck the last four wickets soon enough and put up a big second inning total to put India under pressure in the fourth inning as well. “Cricket’s a funny game, we will need to come out and get four wickets and bat big. Then whatever we set, we need to defend.

The finger injury had troubled him in the Bangalore game but seems to have cured with time. He also admitted that consistency is the key to crack up against this Indian batting. “It is fully healed and I’m lucky to have recovered (referring to the injured finger). They are a class batting line-up and you have to be consistent against them and challenge them, that is where I am proud of our bowling unit as we have challenged them in their backyard.” Lyon concluded.