Nathan Lyon was the key figure for Australia in England’s stuttering second innings, at one point taking 3-14 in a 10.3-over spell, writes Yas Rana.
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It’s not easy being a visiting spinner in England, just ask Ravichandran Ashwin.
India’s premier spinner has played just one of India’s last eight Tests in England. As India lost their second consecutive World Test Championship final, their leading wicket-taker in the 2021-2023 cycle who’d tormented Australia both home and away recently, was left on the bench. One of the leading spin bowlers of his generation is deemed surplus to requirements in English conditions and you can see how India have ended up with that conclusion. After all, in the last five years only one visiting spinner has taken a five-wicket haul in England while giving away fewer than 150 runs.
It’s not easy being a spinner playing against England either. England have mercilessly targeted spin in the last year; 11 times in the last 13 England Tests a spinner has gone at more than seven runs per over. Ajaz Patel, the claimant of a Test match ten-for in 2021, was blasted out of the attack at Lord’s in 2022 after just two overs. Zahid Mahmood went at sevens across his two Tests in Pakistan over the winter and even Abrar Ahmed, who took 17 wickets in two games, went at nearly five runs per over. New Zealand’s Michael Bracewell has economy rate of exactly five runs per over against England and 3.19 against other opponents.
Nathan Lyon is clearly a different calibre of bowler to the spinners mentioned above, but there was no deviation to England’s method on day four at Edgbaston. England (mainly Harry Brook) took 21 runs off his first two overs on day four before Lyon and Australia’s fortunes changed dramatically.
The turning point for Lyon and potentially the Test was the dismissal of Root, who batted with an ominous authority in the first hour as England scored 93 runs before drinks. Root looked to take Lyon on down the ground but was beaten in the air and ultimately stumped for the first time in 131 Tests.
From there on Lyon was immense, bucking both of those recent trends involving England and spin. Bowling with a much more defensive field than the one afforded to Moeen Ali in the Australia first innings, Lyon bowled with exquisite control, restricting the rotation of strike despite the number of available gaps in the in-field, often bowling with 3-6 on-side field from around the wicket. Sure, there was a change in impetus from Stokes in particular but Lyon gave them nothing. For maybe the first time in the Stokes era, England were going nowhere against the opposition spinner. In an unbroken spell either side of lunch, Lyon accounted for Root, Brook and finally Jonny Bairstow. Between the dismissals of Root and Bairstow, Lyon’s figures read 10.3-2-14-3. It turns out that the closest thing we’ve seen so far to a Bazball antidote is classical, orthodox off-spin.
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That’s doing down Lyon’s class as an off-spinner, though. His four-for took his overall career average below 31 for the first time since 2012 and in England, he’s the most consistently threatening overseas spinner since the years of Warne and Muralitharan. For the second away Ashes series in a row, Lyon left a lasting imprint on the first Test.
England and Australia have markedly contrasting styles of play; England are constantly concocting fields we’ve never seen before while Australia are unorthodox in their conservatism and over the first three and a half days of the series, there was hardly a hair’s width between them. Part of what has made the first Test so compelling is to see how two opposing philosophies can end up in such a similar place.
But going through the respective head-to-head battles, the most glaring mismatch is that of Lyon – 495 Test wickets at counting – and Moeen, who has had a fine Test career but has come into the series without a first-class game in two years. While the lasting memory of Lyon on day four will be ripping the heart out of England’s middle order, for Moeen it was to seek treatment on his injured finger after sending down a full toss and two drag downs in his sixth over.
Judging by each side’s team selection – both chose to leave out their fastest bowler – we can assume that neither camp anticipated a surface this slow where spin would play such a prominent role from the first day. Conditions have meant that that particular head-to-head has had a much more riding on it than you’d normally expect for a Test in England in early June.
That mismatch is in part the consequence of England’s current dearth of spin-bowling option, but more than anything, it’s Lyon’s progression to a genuinely elite spin bowler in all conditions.
