Lyon makes history, rivals contemporaries

Now that Nathan Lyon has secured admittance to that exclusive and shoulder-weary collective of spinners who can boast 250 Test wickets, he will once more be evaluated alongside the past practitioners of the slow bowling craft.

Just the 13th tweaker of any iteration to scale this peak after claiming 3-79 on day one of the first Test in Dhaka, and only the second from Australia after Shane Warne, who peddled leg spin, which has historically proved a more potent weapon for spinners on hard, true Australian pitches.

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An achievement that also earns him top 10 status among the most prolific off-spinners throughout 140 years of Test cricket, half of whom have hailed from beyond the helpful conditions of the subcontinent – New Zealand's Daniel Vettori, Lance Gibbs from the West Indies, England pair Derek Underwood and Graeme Swann and, as of today, Lyon.

It also elevates him to eighth (replacing another ex-leggie, Richie Benaud) on Australia's honour board of Test wicket-takers, with the potential to snatch seventh-place from Jason Gillespie (259 wickets) by the time this tour of Bangladesh is done.

But given the caveats and pre-conditions that accompany any attempts to directly compare discrete eras, it is perhaps more instructive to gauge Lyon's accomplishment alongside his Test cricket contemporaries.

And when employing those parameters, the answer as to how well the bloke who grew from a professional gardener to full bloom in the modern game stacks up alongside those he's played with and against is 'pretty bloody well'.

It's six years to the week since Lyon, then aged 23 and whose progress to Test cricket was fast-tracked by selector Greg Chappell who recognised potential in Lyon's limited-overs performances, shuffled somewhat self-consciously on to the Test arena.

"You have to remind him that he's taken so many wickets because he acts like he's playing in his first Test every time he walks on to the field," Lyon's Australia teammate Mitchell Starc told cricket.com.au's 'Unplayable Podcast' last week.

"He's a nervous character, but Nath's been such a good bowler for the Australian team for such a long time.

"In India (earlier this year) he really bowled so well, he probably out-bowled the Indian spinners on their home turf."

The 11th spinner Australia had blooded after Warne retired in 2007, Lyon's lean frame and hungry look lent him the air of an itinerant labourer from a Steinbeck novel but he revealed himself to be a consummate Test cricketer with his very first delivery.

Which netted him the highly-prized wicket of Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara, and set him on a path to the very top echelon of Test bowlers of all affiliation and persuasion over the next half a dozen years.

Image Id: 51B1D90A2E14451B923C21B07C475AC2 Image Caption: Lyon celebrates his first-ever Test wicket back in August 2011 // Getty

That fact is spelled out by the list of leading wicket-takers since Lyon began his Test journey, a collective that is dominated by the five bowlers who have each claimed more than 200 wickets during that period.

Lyon is jockeying for third place among that group, alongside England seamers James Anderson and Stuart Broad who are currently slicing a swathe through the West Indies.

All three remain well adrift of the leading Test performers of the past six years, Lyon's fellow spinners Rangana Herath from Sri Lanka (305 wickets from 56 matches) and Ravi Ashwin from India who has snared 292 from 52 Tests with his off-spin.

However, drilling further into those statistics reveals a detail that suggests Lyon's results warrant even greater merit than his ranking in the top five-most successful Test bowlers of his time indicates.

Image Id: A62C9B88FDD14EC6BE2F659C9455BFCE Image Caption: Most Test wickets since Lyon's debut (August 31, 2011)

Left-arm orthodox Herath and off-spinner Ashwin play a bulk of their Test cricket in Asia where pitch conditions invariably assist slow bowling, a fact underscored by a breakdown of their successes.

Herath has claimed almost 70 per cent of his wickets on home tracks in Sri Lanka while Ashwin was proved even more dominant in familiar climes with greater than 71 per cent of his victims falling on Indian soil.

Similarly, seamers Anderson and Broad revel in the swing bowler-friendly damp and heavy cloud cover of the UK where they have taken more than 60 per cent of their respective wickets over the past six years.

By contrast, Lyon plays a king-of-the-jungle's share of his cricket in Australia where finger spinners have historically struggled to make an impact.

After Lyon's 118 Test wickets on those fast, flinty Australian strips so beloved by the quicks, the next-best return by a finger spinner is Bruce Yardley's 79 (while noting that Bill Johnston took 101 with a hybrid of medium-pace and left-arm orthodox).

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Unlike the four contemporaries to have enjoyed similar success since Lyon made his Test debut in August 2011, the laconic lad from cherry-growing country at Young in rural New South Wales boasts better figures when playing away from home.

Around 48 per cent of his wickets have come in Australia, with the balance at a marginally superior average from his appearances off-shore.

As recently as the lead-in to Australia's tour to India earlier this year, where the 29-year-old pocketed his career-best return of 8-50 in the second Test at Bengaluru, questions were aired about his potency on Asian pitches, against the game's most accomplished wranglers of spin bowling.

A perception which, according to Starc, has now been – for the time being, at least – laid to rest with the topic noticeably absent from discussions ahead of Australia's arrival in Bangladesh.

"He's probably copped a bit from his Asian series where he hasn't taken those massive amounts of wickets," Starc said.

"He's still bowled really well but he hasn't come away with those bags of wickets that guys like Ashwin and (his India teammate Ravi) Jadeja that bowl so much.

"Those teams rely on those two, and we've got a few bowlers that tend to try and take our wickets.

"It's great for Nathan to come away with a bag of wickets in India (this year) and check that one off and say 'I really can bowl in these conditions'.

"He's got to tell himself that, really learn from that and say 'I know I can do it now, just let me do it'.

"In Asian conditions, you can build the bowling attack around him."

Australia in Bangladesh 2017

Australia squad: Steve Smith (c), David Warner (vc), Ashton Agar, Jackson Bird, Hilton Cartwright, Pat Cummins, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Matthew Renshaw, Mitchell Swepson, Matthew Wade.

Bangladesh squad: Mushfiqur Rahim (c), Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Imrul Kayes, Shakib Al Hasan, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Sabbir Rahman, Nasir Hossain, Liton Das, Taskin Ahmed, Shafiul Islam, Mustafizur Rahman, Taijul Islam, Mominul Haque.

27-31 August First Test, Dhaka

4-8 September Second Test, Chittagong