Nathan Lyon keen to gather insights from Muttiah Muralitharan

Australian off-spinner Nathan Lyon has been successful in the longer format of the game. Lyon is keen to get further insights from the off-spinning legend from Sri Lanka, Muttiah Muralitharan. In 2014, Murali had worked briefly with him as a consultant bowling coach. “(Mentor) John Davison and myself were recently talking about a few comments that he (Murali) said about how you should be bowling over on the sub-continent,” Lyon told cricket.co.au.

“So I’m looking forward to putting those into play and hopefully, it will be good to catch up with Murali again over there. If we can get him down to a training session that would be fantastic.”

Also read – Cricket Australia to introduce ‘concussion substitutes’

Lyon, who had played 54 Test matches, 10 ODIs and one T20 international for Australia. has so far picked 195 Test wickets and is just five wickets away from becoming the first Australian off-spinner to claim 200 wickets in the longest format. Despite bowling in seaming friendly conditions, he has a decent strike-rate of 62.7 and the best bowling figures in a match of 12 for 286.

Lyon said that he would like to discuss the mindset of bowling in sub-continent conditions with Murali, who could probably explain that much better than anyone else, being the only bowler to claim 800 Test wickets. “It’s not so much technical, I’ve got a little bit different action to Murali,”

Also read – Australia players want just one Day-Night Test a year

“It’s more mindset, and attacking and defending in sub-continental conditions. Just understanding the game, and somebody of his quality and what he was able to do in sub-continent conditions was pretty spectacular so if I can learn off him by just listening to him and talking to him then I’m heading in the right direction,” Lyon signed-off.