Australia v India: How Nathan Lyon became Australia’s greatest off-spinner
Ahead of his 100th Test, those closest to Nathan Lyon provide an insight into how he went from Adelaide Oval curator to Australia’s greatest off-spinner ever.
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When Mike Hussey chose Nathan Lyon to be the custodian of Australia’s team song, it had nothing to do with his cricketing ability.
Simply, it was because he spotted a trait deep inside him.
“I just knew Nathan played the game for the right reasons,” said Hussey, who first met Lyon on the eve of the 2010-11 Ashes Test in Adelaide.
Australia was desperate to find a net bowler who could bowl as a Graeme Swann stunt double and someone went and hauled in one of the young kids working on the Adelaide oval ground staff.
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FULL LIST: DOES LYON MAKE TOP-50 CRICKETERS OF 21ST CENTURY?
Eight months later when Lyon was picked out of the blue for his first Test tour, then assistant coach Justin Langer introduced a buddy system for older players to partner up with a rookie.
Hussey requested to be matched with Lyon, seeing something in the nervous, unassuming country kid not many others did.
“It was his character. I just liked him from the start,” said Hussey, who surprised many, but has let down no one by bestowing on Lyon the honour of leading the team song.
“With Nathan, it was how he played the game, how he worked hard at his game, how he respected the game.
“It wasn’t for fame or fortune or the luxuries and things you get on the side because of playing for Australia. He plays the game because he loves it.
“The team was in transition with a fair turnover of players. There was a filtering of some of the younger players coming in where I thought, ‘hmm,’ I wasn’t sure they were playing necessarily for 100 per cent the right reasons.
“I wanted Nathan’s attributes passed onto the next generation.”
As Lyon today prepares to become only the 13th player in Australian Test history to play 100 matches, his family immediately cast their minds back to when he played his first.
Lyon’s father Steve was out on the paddock in the spinner’s home town of Young back in August 2011 when he had just enough bars of reception to receive word his son was about to make his Test debut in Sri Lanka.
“Oh well, at least you got one game,” was the reply that came back from dad.
That humble grounding from his parents has shaped Lyon’s incredible journey as surely the most underrated Australian to play 100 Tests.
Brendan Lyon – a grade cricket coach in Sydney – who sadly can’t attend at the Gabba due to Queensland’s border closure – says the tight relationship he shares with his younger brother is characterised by him doing the talking, and Nathan mostly messaging.
There was one message Brendan won’t ever forget.
“I’m off to receive our Baggy Green,” read the simple text hours before Lyon’s debut.
Every afternoon playing in their grandparent’s backyard, a grade premiership they shared in Canberra, Brendan putting his car on the Indian Pacific for Lyon’s second Sheffield Shield game, thinking it might be his only chance to see his brother play at Adelaide Oval: all led to this moment.
“I just remember driving home from work that day and my phone just went absolutely mental, because he removed Sangakkara first ball,” Brendan says of Lyon’s Test debut in Galle.
“Then he picked up his fifth before I started grade training that night and I walked into training in disbelief.”
No one believed Lyon would ever play 100 Tests. Not his brother, not Hussey, not Lyon himself.
Fast bowling buddies Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins have said Lyon gets so nervous before every Test he plays, it’s as if he’s made 100 debuts.
For a lot of his career this was self-doubt. Ten Australian spinners had been tried and failed after Shane Warne’s retirement, and Lyon naturally felt the pressure of following in The King.
“Warney was an absolute genius and used to bowl Australia to victory in that last innings more often than not,” said Hussey.
“I think what Nathan really struggled with at times was that expectation. That, ‘OK, it’s time for the spinner to come in and win us the game.’
“I didn’t realise in those early days just how nervous and insecure he was.”
Perhaps Lyon’s greatest career crossroads came in the summer of 2016-17, where after Australia’s disastrous loss to South Africa in Hobart he was on the verge of being axed. But had one Sheffield Shield match to save himself.
“I just remember saying to him, ‘mate you’ve got nothing else to achieve in it. If it all ended tomorrow, you’ve had a great career,” said brother, Brendan.
Lyon went out the next day as a nightwatchman and was hit by two bowlers.
“My dad turned to me and he just said;’ That’s guts,’” said Brendan.
Lyon survived the axe and two Tests later, with the knives still out for him, produced a spell against Pakistan at the MCG which, supported by the birth of the ‘Nice Garry’ catch cry, would prove the turning point of his career.
“It looked like there was no chance of a result. I said to him the night before the last day, ‘mate, you just never know what might happen.’ I don’t think he believed me,” said Brendan.
“Then he ripped out Younis Khan, Misbah ul-Haq and Shafiq and he hasn’t looked back since.”
In more recent years, Lyon has powered on to become the world’s No. 1 spinner. The nerves are still there, but Brendan reckons that could just be from having a superstitious father.
According to Cummins, it’s a vivid tribute to just how much playing for Australia means to him.
The MCG crowd were set for a record-breaking 'Nice Garry' chant on Nathan Lyon's third ball on Boxing Day, 2016.
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) September 2, 2020
Then the GOAT produced this! #MelbourneMoments pic.twitter.com/bXhKuPn9pt
Just 10 months separated Lyon the Adelaide net bowler and Lyon the Test debutant – and for that reason, one of his greatest backers, former captain Michael Clarke says you cannot give the off-spinner enough praise for what he has achieved.
“He’s grown at the highest level, which is very hard to do. When he first started he was a lot more comfortable bowling around the wicket than he was over the wicket. A lot of people learn it and grow it at first class and grade cricket. Lyono has done it at the highest level,” said Clarke.
“He’s been exceptional. I’m so proud of him.”
Behind the scenes, Lyon is the player Cricket Australia uses to represent them at its disability programs. He is the player that just turns up to his brother’s grade training. Who can talk to kids hanging over the fence with autograph bats and connect with them at their level.
Lyon’s father Steve spent Thursday driving from Narrabri to Brisbane in a convoy with some of his nine siblings, who long ago dubbed themselves the ‘NLT’ (Nathan Lyon Tragics).
When Lyon played his first Test against India in Australia, Steve sat in the stands in 43 degree heat wearing moleskins and RM Williams boots and didn’t move a muscle.
“It’s only hot if you think about it,” Steve told his boys growing up.
And by living that motto, Lyon has proved the doubters wrong.
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