Nathan Lyon became the 17th bowler in the history of Test cricket when he picked up the wicket of Dawid Malan to reach 400 Test wickets. He made his debut in 2011 against Sri Lanka and picked up the key wicket of Kumar Sangakkara with his very first ball and had a fifer in his very first innings - which paved the way for Australia to win the Test match against Sri Lanka.
Mind you, before he had been selected, Lyon had taken up a job as a groundsman at the Adelaide Oval. It speaks volumes of his testimony in achieving this landmark and being only the second non-Asian spinner to achieve this feat behind the great Shane Warne.
Out of the 101 Test matches the champion off spinner has played, he has picked up 204 wickets in Australia in 53 Tests where spinners don’t get so much help as most of the pitches are tailormade for pace bowlers. He has been a vital cog for Australia and has been instrumental in several wins in Australia and foreign countries. In the 2014 series against India, which was played after the unfortunate death of Philip Hughes, he was difference in both the teams at Adelaide by picking 12 wickets where batsman dominated and more than 1600 runs where scored in that Test match.
He is called the GOAT (greatest of all time ) by his teammates for his relentless effort put in in difficult conditions on Australian wickets - toiling hard in every Test match and giving his more than hundred percent in every game he plays.
He might always live under the shadow of Shane Warne, Australia’s greatest spinner, but Lyon has proved time and again he is not far behind with lionhearted effort for his team.
Today at the Gabba, he was instrumental in breaking the threatening partnership between Joe Root and Dawid Malan and picked up total four wickets for another Aussie win.
- Cricket enthusiast Anis Sajan is the Vice Chairman of Danube Group
