Spin 'still valued' with Lyon to end Ashes pace-fest

Nathan Lyon has been backed by Andrew McDonald to play a major role in the final three Ashes Tests despite Australia's coach acknowledging home pitches and the pink ball are diminishing the value of spin bowling.

England's dismembering under lights at the Gabba, along with Lyon's replacement Michael Neser more than holding his own in the day-time, vindicated the bold move to leave out the star off-spinner for only the second time in 14 years and 75 home Tests.

Lyon admitted he had been "filthy" at the call to dump from the XI for a second consecutive day-night Test. McDonald insisted he would expect nothing less from the proud 140-Test veteran.

The cold truth is Australia are 2-0 up in the series despite Lyon, Test cricket's leading wicket taker among active players with 562 victims, sending down just 12 balls. England have not picked a specialist spinner in either match.

But Lyon's return for next week's Adelaide Test alongside skipper Pat Cummins has all but been guaranteed and the Australians expect him to balance out their attack for the rest of the series.

"I'll make this a headline: We still do value spin," McDonald told reporters on Tuesday as the Australians rest up during a nine-day break between the second and third NRMA Insurance Tests.

"The surfaces have pushed us in different directions. That's the first game that Nathan's missed in Australia for a long time. Has his impact been as great as previous seasons with the surfaces that we're playing on? Potentially not.

"I think Nathan is going to have an incredibly huge impact in the last three Test matches. If you look to what he did at the MCG last year (against India) when the surface became benign on day three onwards, he was able to navigate through that and hold down an end.

"And that's the rhythm we want. We want the spinner down one end and rotate three weeks. That's when we feel like we're at our best.

"But you sometimes can't play in spite of what's presented in front of you and some of those decisions have been difficult. They've been two pink-ball games that have put us in that position. So you can join the dots there."

McDonald offered further insight into Australia's call to play Neser over Lyon in Brisbane, explaining they wanted to go all in on pace bowling in the hope they would get to bowl at England with a new ball at night.

Their lower-order's ability to bat through the bulk of day three's first two sessions allowed Neser, Mitchell Starc and Scott Boland to then go on a rampage under lights.

Already behind in the match, England lost 5-38, slumping to 6-128 and trailing by 49, a position from which they were never able to recover.

It had been a similar story in Jamaica when West Indies hosted Australia for a day-night contest with a pink Dukes ball. The visitors' all-seam attack decimated the Windies, skittling them for a record low 29 in their second innings.

While Lyon's record with the pink ball is strong, he was only needed to bowl one over during the entire day-night Test against India in Adelaide last summer. In the 2021-22 Hobart Test under lights, he did not bowl a single ball.

"The pink ball game created different challenges and we put value on different areas of the game under lights," said McDonald, speaking about the Gabba Test.

"The ability to have four quicks navigate through that night session, to be able to keep coming and maintain the pressure there, we felt like that was going to break the game open for us.

"The guys executed beautifully in that moment and that's what we built the team around. We got that opportunity and were able to take that."

McDonald's concession that Lyon is playing a different role than he used to tallies with the bigger picture numbers that highlight his declining workload over time.

The 736 balls he bowled during last summer's Border-Gavaskar Trophy were the fewest he had sent down in a home season ever. He will go below that number this summer unless he averages more than 40 overs per Test in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney.

"There's no right or wrong in this," said McDonald.

"People will sit down at the end of the Test match … and will still challenge it. We just valued different things in the pink-ball game, and unfortunately that meant that Nathan had to squeeze (out).

"That's nothing to do with his skillset, it's not a reflection on where he's at from his own performance. It is a reflection on pink-ball cricket and a reflection on the surface that was presented to us.

"You're not ending someone's career in that space either. We still value Nathan incredibly and he'll have a big part to play in this series.

"He was disappointed at his non-selection and you'd expect any proud player to be disappointed that had a non-selection when they think they can impact the game … I get that. I'd be disappointed if he wasn't disappointed."  

2025-26 NRMA Insurance Men's Ashes

First Test: Australia won by eight wickets

Second Test: Australia won by eight wickets

Third Test: December 17-21: Adelaide Oval, 10:30am AEDT

Fourth Test: December 26-30: MCG, Melbourne, 10:30am AEDT

Fifth Test: January 4-8: SCG, Sydney, 10:30am AEDT

Australia squad (second Test): Steve Smith (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Brendan Doggett, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, Mitchell Starc, Jake Weatherald, Beau Webster

England squad: Ben Stokes (c), Harry Brook (vc), Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Brydon Carse, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Will Jacks, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Jamie Smith (wk), Josh Tongue, Mark Wood