The fast bowlers have got a lot of the glory and now it is time that we talk about one of the greatest spinners in world test cricket along with Ravichandran Ashwin and as we did an article about the best test performances by Ashwin, we are here to give Nathan Lyon the same respect. He is the leader of the Australian bowling attack when it comes to spin and after Shane Warne he is the highest wicket taker among spinners. He has been playing for over a decade and now we will look at his records till now below.
Nathan Lyon has been playing test cricket from 2011 and he has played 110 Test Matches so far and in those Matches he has taken 438 Test wickets so far with the likelihood of him taking more . He has taken these wickets at an average of 32.07 and he has 20 Five wicket hauls and 3 times he has taken 10 wickets in a test match. He is a living legend in test cricket and it is my honor that I am getting to write about his best performances till now. So let’s check them out.
5/34 vs Sri Lanka (2011)
This was his very first test match and in the first innings he bowled he got a 5 wicket haul and it was against the best Sri Lanka batting line-up. He showed that he was a special talent in this test match itself. He only bowled 15 overs in the innings and giving away 34 runs he took 5 wickets in the Innings and it was his first 5 wicket haul in test cricket as well. He was destined for hreat things and it was because of his heroics that Australia won this test match easily by 125 runs in the end. A special debut performance by Nathan Lyon.
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5/50 vs England (2013)
The second performance on this list came against England in 2013 when the England team was good at playing spin. He did his magic in the second innings of the test match when the match was in the balance and he just ripped through the batting line-up after bowling 17 overs of top class spin bowling and he was one of the main reasons that Australia won this match by 8 wickets. He was starting to show that he can do well against any opponent in any condition.
5/134 and 7/152 vs India (2014)
As much as it pains me to write about this performance the truth is that he was the only one that denied India the win in this match so I have to write about this here. In the first Indian batting innings he took 5 wickets for 134 runs after bowling a long spell of 36 overs and the match was in the balance. Then in the 4th innings he brought his best as he picked up 7 wickets for 152 runs in 34.1 overs meaning 12 Wickets for the match in more than 70 overs of spin bowling. This was heartbreaking for India fans but a top class performance by Nathan Lyon.
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7/94 and 6/60 vs Bangladesh (2017)
This is another test match where he took 13 wickets in total so I have to put this in this list but thankfully it was not against India. This time Bangladesh were the victims as he took 7 wickets in the first innings of the test match by giving away 94 runs in 36.2 overs and Bangladesh were all out for 305. Then in the third Innings of the test match he bowled even better as in 33 overs he gave away just 60 runs and took 6 wickets and as a result Australia won this test match by 7 wickets and he was the main reason behind this win.
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6/49 vs England (2019)
The fifth performance on this list was against England at their home and he was at his best and in the first innings he took 3 wickets but in the 4th innings when England needed 398 runs to win Nathan Lyon bowled one of his best spells and took 6 wickets for just 49 runs in 20 overs and all the England fans had no choice but to acknowledge his greatness and he was a legend at this point but he won the match for Australia by a massive 251 runs.
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