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On the final day of the Australia-India classic, there was an over when Nathan Lyon’s career might have ended.
Murali Vijay had faced 159 balls, Virat Kohli 77. Tea was 13 overs away. Kohli regarded the catchers and run-savers on the leg side, then knelt and flicked over them to the midwicket fence.
The next ball drifted outside off and Kohli stepped out to cover drive, the bat flipping in that whipcrack follow-through that so clearly watermarks his highlight reels.
On Saturday, his reel consisted of belting Lyon, who had just bowled his 19th over and had taken one distant wicket. Both batsmen were into the 60s. Lyon’s next two went for 15, and the target dipped below 200.
Two years ago, South Africa batted out a draw against Lyon on this same Adelaide pitch. Across his 50 overs he managed three wickets. It became a hefty primate on the bowler’s back. Sure he’s a spinner, went the talking point, but what good is a spinner who can’t win you a game on the fifth day?
There was another over against India when Nathan Lyon’s career might have ended. He’d been pulled from the attack after that mauling, had the tea break for a few deep breaths, then commenced the third session. His fourth ball trapped Kohli flush in front of the stumps. Not out, said the umpire. India needed 159 and both batsmen were in the 80s.
Lyon does not strike you as a confident cricketer. In the field he seems quiet. While bowling he keeps his thoughts to himself. When attacked he goes into his shell, flattens his arc to control the damage. The pressure was on him, from the start of the day with Australia’s declaration. India had 364 to chase and he had a day to bowl them out. Doubts would have swirled. At his worst point of the afternoon, his career strike-rate in all fourth innings crept above 82. Then he started taking wickets.
Even then, there was one more over when Nathan Lyon’s career might have ended. The 80th. He had picked up three wickets but Kohli wasn’t done. A cover drive for four, then a single. Wriddhiman Saha, a diminutive wicketkeeper with an IPL century to his name, scampered down and walloped Lyon over long-off for six. Then he was down low and nailing the sweep shot for four. 15 runs from five balls, and India only 65 from home.
Another day, any one of those might have been the moment when Lyon broke. Any threat would have vanished with his confidence. Had India cruised home – a steady 30 from Saha, the balance from Kohli – then Lyon might have finished with 4 for about 180, had nine wickets for the match, and still have been dropped for Brisbane.
Had Australia lost, Lyon would again have been the guy who couldn’t bowl them to victory. He would again have been unlucky, but close calls and misfortune fade quickly into the monochrome immovability of the stats sheet. In the meantime, nothing makes Australians froth like a legspinner, even selectors. Cameron Boyce’s ball of the century was all over the internet, and that Gabba native might have been picked for the ground where Shane Warne once reigned supreme.
Lyon is not a career cricketer. I say this in the sense that he’s probably the only guy in Australia’s line-up who knows what it’s like to have a normal working week, no bigger prospects ahead, being no one even potentially special. The others all came through cricket systems, talents identified and nurtured. Mitchell Marsh chose between professional Australian rules football and professional cricket. Even Ryan Harris, with a Test debut at 30, played his first domestic games at around 20.
At a few years older than that, Lyon was in Canberra playing club cricket for Western Districts with no grander plans. While club-mate Ben Oakley joined the 2010 PM’s XI, Lyon was only helping curate the pitch they played on. A year later, he was debuting in a T20 game for South Australia. Six months after that, he was dismissing Kumar Sangakkara with his first ball in a Test match.
Club teammates recall him being confident, almost cocky. He was at the forefront of all the action, sledged heartily on the field and was an aggressive No. 6 bat, once making 90 from about 50 balls. A great clubman, he was captain by his early 20s, highly social, happy to get out on the town. Then suddenly he was whisked up to the palace, and his ridiculous rise began.
Understandably enough, Lyon just about lost his lunch. Media training took over and he started talking in team cliché. He was nervous about playing and about how quickly he could be thrown back to obscurity. This all tallies with his Test incarnation: a quiet and inexpressive bowler, a hesitant appealer, a fragile opponent who jangles around the field like a pillowcase full of coat-hangers. The swaggering club captain becomes a timid, studious No. 11 batsman and nightwatchman condescended to by commentators. It’s hard to believe in yourself when you can’t help feeling you fluked the audition.
In the Adelaide Test of 2014, Lyon started the day like he’d started believing. Cheteshwar Pujara was batting well, but balls were spitting at him, leaping from a good length and turning. There was rough aplenty outside the right-hander’s off-stump. It took great watchfulness for Pujara to resist. For the first time in Lyon’s career, I watched him thinking that anything could happen at any moment. Every ball contained danger, and Pujara’s dismissal seemed destined before it transpired.
India’s batsmen then gained ascendancy, but Lyon never backed down. When he was collared before tea, he composed himself and came out ready to start over. When he missed out on Kohli’s wicket, he went back and kept flighting balls outside off-stump that turned in. Finally, eventually, he started to get his reward.
In the final challenge, instead of wilting against Saha, he went at him – not darting one in to save a run, but ripping it so it landed on a tempting length, came in faster than expected, and turned onto the stumps. That combination made Saha attack and made him miss. Lyon had five, the pressure on Kohli became too much, and the job was all but done.
On any other day, any of those moments might have seen Lyon back down. The confidence would have ebbed, the carapace been sought. But on that fifth day, he didn’t flag. The dismissals he started to generate were off-spinning classics: leg before, close catches, bowled through the gate. His previous Australian five-for came with England hitting out in Melbourne, but here it was all him. Even his appeals were louder, more convincing: never before can I remember Lyon down on one knee, wingspan spread, pleading with an umpire for a decision.
This was a day when Nathan Lyon’s career could have been over. It was certainly a day when his match would have been over. Any match up until now, it probably would have gone that way. Instead, this might be the day that Lyon’s career truly starts, at least in his personal estimation.
“Certainly I believed,” he said after the game. “I’ll keep on believing.”
That’s one hell of a difference.
This article was first posted on Wisden India.