Photograph: Richard Wainwright/AP
Looking back, the start of Nathan Lyon’s Test career can seem impossibly long ago. Taking the ball in Sri Lanka in 2011 is a baby version, head ringed in duck down, face thin and anxious. There are glimpses of his future - start with turn away from the left-hander to get Kumar Sangakkara at slip, end with a diving return catch for a fifth. But there is the confusion of his present, a player unsure how to celebrate when each wicket falls, waving his limbs and jumping sporadically like a foal tangled in a fence.
Coming from outside the usual route, playing club cricket into his 20s instead of state age-group in his teens, Lyon for years was unconvinced he belonged. His physical presence has always reflected his jangling nerves: all angles and elbows, an unstuffed puppet with somebody overzealously yanking the strings. The appearance changed, that fuzzy head giving way to the sleek chrome dome that - until that fateful calf tear in London last June - fitted his mechanical reliability. But even before his comeback in Perth last week, on the way to Test wicket 500 and a win against Pakistan, his teammates said he was nervous again.
Back in the early years, he had good reason. For years selectors didn’t fully believe in him, often retaining him because of the lack of alternatives. He was left out for four quicks in Perth in 2012, for Xavier Doherty in Hyderabad in 2013, returned for nine wickets in Delhi, then got dropped for the teenage Ashton Agar for that year’s Ashes. As recently as December 2016 he would have been swept out with the new broom after South Africa thrashed Australia in Hobart; five changes for Adelaide would have been six had the replacement spinner Steve O’Keefe not torn a muscle that week.
Still, each of those exclusions only lasted one or two matches, and after that final flirtation with the abyss he consistently strengthened his position in the side. He was excellent in India in 2017, setting up what should have been a 2-0 lead but let down by his batters, and even better in Bangladesh in a hard-fought 1-1 series. Now fully equipped to bowl in Asia, you could sense the gradually growing belief that he wasn’t one bad day away from being dumped from the side.
With all that insecurity, Lyon has assembled a line of defences as a public figure. Aside from a disastrous few months of attempting trash talk leading up to the sandpaper debacle, he has remained tucked in behind them. With longevity that means he has fronted more press conferences than most, you soon pick up on the repeat lines.
“I can’t bat,” is his preface for any conversation about either team’s work with the blade, disingenuously for a guy who has reached or cleared the boundary 190 times in Tests. “To be brutally honest,” he says ahead of any uncontroversial observation, as if to disclaim responsibility should someone disagree. He gives a good workout to lines about not playing for milestones, and expresses embarrassment at being statistically associated with past greats. This week, looking at the significance of the 500, he allowed himself the indulgence of saying: “It’s something that I’m very proud about.”
Some observers mark spinners by their ability to bowl out teams in the fourth innings. Lyon had an albatross hung around his neck early, largely by Matthew Wade’s wicketkeeping, when South Africa got through 50 of his overs to draw in Adelaide in 2012. The prominent shortfalls include England at Headingley in 2019, India’s double miracle at Sydney and Brisbane in 2021, and the Sydney efforts of England in 2022 and India in 2015.
On the counter, Lyon has dominated other tough games bowling last. That 2019 Ashes finished 2-2 thanks to his six wickets setting up the initial lead at Edgbaston. He took seven in the Adelaide epic against India in 2014, and five in the series clincher in Lahore in 2022 when Australia returned to Pakistan. He has taken wickets in 29 Australian wins that were sealed bowling last.
But with Lyon there is something else: the reliability he offers in the first half of matches, especially in Australia where spinners are not expected to contribute. Especially orthodox finger spinners. Across the first and second innings of Tests in Australia, many of the game’s great visiting bowlers have paid for their wickets with bowling averages in the 50s, or 70s, or 90s. Lyon has 119 such wickets at 35, going at 2.8 runs per over, while also contributing in the field. Having him to set and forget at one end is the key to Australia’s fast-bowling success, the metronome that the others are able to play around.
Doing that job fits with the humility that he has shown through his career. Perhaps the humility is excessive, a legacy of that initial insecurity. But it might also lend itself to longevity. You get the feeling that Lyon still can’t believe that he gets to play for Australia. Doing so has defined his life. So why call time any earlier than his body demands? He has 501 wickets now. Glenn McGrath’s 563 is close. Shane Warne’s 708 is distant but not impossible. He would probably never admit it was a goal, but Nathan Lyon is the kind of character who could just keep quietly grinding towards it.
