Journeyman transformed
With 22 wickets, Nathan Lyon has been the superstar of the series against Bangladesh, but for much of his career he has not had the run of success or appreciation as the likes of David Warner and skipper Steve Smith -- Lyon's fellow seniors in a young team.
The Shane Warne hangover in Australian cricket made it difficult for spinners to enter the team and make a niche for themselves, and while there have been many candidates for first-choice spinners over the years, Lyon has held his own within the pack. He missed out on four of the 74 Tests that Australia have played during his career span and he has had to fight and adapt, not to mention achieve considerable success, to arrive at his current position as Australia's premier spinner.
A player often seen as a journeyman now has the most wickets in the calendar year with 46. In taking three seven-wicket hauls in Asia, he has left behind even Warne in the dust as the only visiting bowler to achieve that haul three times in Asia. The journeyman is a proper superstar, yet when asked to comment about his success on this tour, which may as well be called Lyon's series, he deflected the praise towards his teammates.
“Personal success, as everyone knows, is not something that I look at,” said Lyon when asked to reflect on his achievement after their win in the second Test against Bangladesh in Chittagong yesterday. “It's moments like we've got now, after winning a Test match for Australia -- we'll go back and sit around as a group and tell stories and then sing the song.
“To take 22 wickets in a two-match series it's a pretty big achievement personally. But as I said, I don't do that without the other guys putting in at the other end, like Patty Cummins bowling well, Ashton Agar, Steve O'Keefe and even Hilton Cartwright in this game. So without the support of those guys and the skipper it's pretty hard to go out and have personal success. So I'm very pleased but very thankful as well."
Even when he did talk about himself, he immediately returned to his teammates. “I'm very happy with the way the ball's been coming out in the nets. Bowling to these guys in the nets, there's no better practice."
With the way he has been bowling, the rest of the world will soon realise what the Australia team already know -- that there is a budding great inside the journeyman.
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