Nathan Lyon – The lion spinner.
“If it’s destined to happen, it will happen,” says Murphy’s law. This is a quote to live by especially in this generation and applies to life as well as in all its aspects. Some players didn’t get a push into the cricketing field but their constant talent and focus on their endeavors left life with no other choice but to make their ends meet. One such player is Nathan Lyon and today in this article we will talk about his pursuit of success.
Nathan Michael Lyon who is preferably called “Gary” by his teammates has been one of the biggest stars for the country with the ball. In the post-Warne generation, he has emerged to be Australia’s go-to bowler in home and away series. A young Lyon moved to Canberra to play in the ACT’s U-17 and U-18 teams. In the Cricket Australia cup, he debuted for the Comets where he even scalped a wicket on the day. During his tenure with the comets, he was trained by captain-coach Mark Higgs who helped the young Nathan a lot with his line length and other tactical issues he faced with his bowling at that time. He ensured Lyon’s action changed to what suited him the best so that he can extract the required bounce and spin off the track. Even after leaving Comets Lyon kept in touch with Higgs for his impeccable support.
The twist in the story came when he joined the ground staff of the Adelaide Oval and was pretty content with his job there. He was responsible for maintaining and providing A-class pitches for domestic and international matches on the ground. One day he just saw a ball lying on the ground which he picked up and randomly bowled it and to his surprise, it went spinning considerably. This event caught the eye of Darren Berry, then coach of the BBL franchise Redbacks and he requested Lyon to bowl another delivery and it spun even more than the last. Both Lyon and Darren saw each other in shock as Darren asked him to start professional practice as an off-spinner seeing the potential he had. Off he started his professional training and little did the world know at that time that a legend was being prepared on the Adelaide pitch. Right from his smooth run-up to the bowling stride and his beautiful bowl release with the finger roll was no less than miraculous poetry and Darren’s confidence in the young lad was paying off.
In the 2010-11 BBL, he emerged as the leading wicket-taker for the Redbacks who went on to win the league later on. In the same year, he was selected to represent Australia A in Zimbabwe where he took 11 wickets in the tri-series to be named man of the series. He continued some amazing performances and within no time he got a chance to play in the national team and it was a well-deserved chance after all the hardships and hard work he had done to reach the point.
In 2011 he was given the chance to make his test debut against Sri Lanka at Galle and to everyone surprise, he got a wicket on the very first ball of his test career when he dismissed Sri Lankan legend Kumar Sangakkara making him the third Australian to take a wicket off the first delivery in their first test for the team in national colors. This did not stop there as he went on to bowl a dream spell in the first innings itself and ended with figures of 5/34 becoming the 31st player to take a five-wicket haul on debut. Later in 2011 Lyon achieved the rare feat of being the 7th number 11 batsman to have top-scored in the team innings where he scored 14 as the entire Australian team was dismissed for 47 by South Africa.
He later played his first test in Australia as the historic Gabba Stadium against New Zealand in the first test match of the series. He shined over all other bowlers with figures of 4-69 and 3-19 in the two innings and cumulative figures of 7-88 at a very healthy economy rate-making his figures the best by an Australian bowler at the Gabba. He also got a place in 3 of the next four series against India where he managed 7 wickets at an average of 41.57. When India revisited Australia at the Adelaide oval Nathan Lyon ran riots through the Indian middle order and left them no chance to reconcile and no other player baring King Kohli could survive on the pitch and as a result, Lyon finished with figures of 5-134 and 7-152 in the two innings and once again had given to the world a gem of a bowling spell visual. He has been a handy bowler in ODI’s and T20’s too with 29 wickets at an average of 42 proving that no matter the format, a good bowler can achieve greatness if he has control and commitment on getting the basics correct.
During the 2016 test series between Australia and South Africa the phrase “Nice Gary” became very famous as it was repeatedly heard from the wicketkeeper Matthew Wade on the stump mic. It took social media by a storm as the entire world started hashtags of Nice Gary and fans on the field started using these tags to cheer for their favorite off-spinner and he delivered to their plea. That was the origin of Gary which is his nickname to the date. In 2017 he became the second Australian spinner after Shane Warne to achiever the fest of 250 test wickets. In the following year, he finished the year with a maximum number of test wickets more than any other Australian bowler. In 2018 he was awarded a national contract by the Australian cricket board for his amazing performances on the field and this was a huge laurel for him on the international stage. In the India Australia 2018 series, he finished on par with Jasprit Bumrah as the highest number of wicket-taker in the series and continued his wicket-taking romance with the Indian team yet again.
With Adam Zampa being the primary spinner in ODI setup, Lyon has not been a regular feature in 50 over format but he was selected in World cup 2019 and he did get to play matches and performed not as per what he is at test level bt did the job for his team by coming round the stumps to the right-handed batsman, thus cramping him for any room to open the arms.
Ashwin for India has been phenomenal in Asia but in SENA countries his performance has been below par while Lyon has been lethal in all parts of the world. Cricket Pandits have mentioned the extra bend which Lyon does at the time of delivering the ball which gives him the extra bounce and that extra millimeter of turn that has proved to be enough to bamboozle even the greatest of the batsman.
Along with his bowling skills, he is a great fielder and certainly can put up a fight with the bat too. All this proves that Nathan Lyon has been a force to reckon with since his debut and has benefited Australia in all the three forms of cricket. In a country where fast bowlers and leg spinners always had an advantage, an off-spinner rocked the stage and made eyes turn with the amount of spin and bounce he derived from any pitch he played across. He remains one of the Aussie strongholds and there is no doubt in that he is one of the biggest reasons for Australia’s success in subcontinental pitches which comparatively are spinner friendly.
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