It seems counterintuitive, but Nathan Lyon‘s record in Perth is remarkable. Opponents prepare fastidiously for the fast-bowling exam and end up flunking the spin-bowling questions. The reasons for Nathan Lyon‘s success are obvious. His stock offspinner has more overspin and creates steeper bounce than anyone else’s in world cricket. That ball, combined with relentless accuracy, on this Perth pitch, is a problem not many players have solved.
Every overseas batter that plays in Perth prepares for the same threat. Fast bowlers steaming in at them. But the leading threat in four Tests played at this venue is not Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins or Josh Hazlewood. It is Nathan Lyon. Australia’s offspinner Nathan Lyon has more wickets here (27) at a better average (18.00) with more five-wicket hauls (2) than any of his fast-bowling colleagues.
Nathan Lyon’s career glimpse in Australian conditions is more less than impressive
Nathan Lyon’s success in Australia overall compared to his spin-bowling contemporaries is also extraordinary. Australia has been a graveyard for spinners over the years, especially conventional finger spinners.
The gap between Nathan Lyon and R Ashwin’s bowling averages in Australia is larger than the inverse gap between their respective records in India. But when you isolate the last two Border-Gavaskar series in Australia, the picture is very different. India’s spinners, including Ashwin, have out-performed Nathan Lyon. He has averaged 37.83 per wicket compared to 30.88 across his career at home.
It has been a big part of India’s two series victories in Australia. India’s batters have played Nathan Lyon better than Australia’s batters have played Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav. They have actually used his consistency against him and heaped more pressure on Australia’s quicks as a result.
And while India’s batters might be fearful of the pace barrage they are about to receive down under, especially given their recent form, the way they plan for Nathan Lyon might be a pivotal part of the series once more. His battles with Virat Kohli have been riveting down the years. But the match-up with India’s two main left-handers’ looms as the most fascinating in this series. One is a known quantity in Rishabh Pant and Nathan Lyon knows what he’s in for.
The other is an unknown. Lyon has never bowled to Yashaswi Jaiswal. Australia’s Test quicks have at least seen him in the IPL.
Nathan Lyon has turned to an unlikely source for some reconnaissance. Lyon spent the first half of the winter playing county cricket with Lancashire. It was an eight-game stint that was unpopular with the England team and their coach Brendon McCullum because England left-arm spinner Tom Hartley, fresh off a promising tour of India, only played three games in the first half of Lancashire’s season and hardly bowled in two of them while playing alongside Australia’s offspinner.
Lyon, though, found the experience incredibly fruitful, which will only add to McCullum’s frustrations. He mined Hartley for every piece of detail he could give on bowling to Jaiswal and India’s batters earlier this year in India. Seeing the dominance Nathan Lyon has on his skills in Australia he tends to be more threatening than the quicks and Wasim Jaffer exactly points out the same to the Indians.
Wasim Jaffer identifies Nathan Lyon as key Australia bowler India should target in the upcoming BGT 2024-25
Former Indian opener Wasim Jaffer believes that Team India batters should target Australian spinner Nathan Lyon in the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. He opined that the veteran bowler will be the ‘key man’ for the hosts in the crucial series.
Jaffer feels that one of Australia’s four pacers having a bad series won’t hurt them. He, however, emphasized that Lyon must fire for the Pat Cummins-led side to have an advantage over the Indian team in the much-anticipated series.
Taking to the microblogging platform X, Jaffer posted:
“Lot of talk about Aus quicks but I think the key man holding Aus attack together is Lyon. Ind should look to go after him. Aus don’t have Cam Green who’s steady 4th seamer. Aus can afford one of the quicks to have a bad series but they can’t afford the same with Lyon. #AUSVIND”
It is worth mentioning that Nathan Lyon has enjoyed great success against India in Test cricket. With 121 wickets from 49 innings, he has bagged the most wickets in India vs Australia Tests. Notably, Team India enter the series with high expectations, especially following the disappointing home series against New Zealand where they were whitewashed 3-0.
The batting unit, led by stalwarts like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, will need to counter Australia’s formidable bowling attack. On the other hand, India’s bowlers Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj and the spin duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, are expected to exploit favorable conditions and challenge Australia’s batting lineup.