With two wickets in his first over at Adelaide Oval, Nathan Lyon made a spectacular comeback to the Test team. With the second wicket, he surpassed Glenn McGrath to become Australia’s second-highest wicket-taker of all time, with Shane Warne standing ahead of him.
After missing two of Australia’s last three Test matches due to pink-ball day-night matches when the selectors chose all-pace attacks, Nathan has been stuck on 562 wickets for five months. Additionally, he had bowled just two overs in the series’ opening Test match in Perth. He hit twice in Adelaide in six balls.
The first came as a gift when Lyon and McGrath were tied after Ollie Pope spooned a catch to midwicket. Ben Duckett was playing forward in defence as he drifted into off from around the wicket on a decent length, and the ball spun past the edge and struck the top of off. It was a peach. A left-hander was dismissed by a traditional offspinner.
Nathan had taken 564 Test wickets at that stage. Warne’s final score from his 145 games was 708.
Lyon is now ranked sixth on the global all-time list, with 600 wickets as his next goal.
Australia has a tonne of Test cricket starting in August of next year, and Lyon has already stated that he wants to continue playing until at least the 2027 Ashes in England.
Lyon was inducted into Adelaide Oval’s Avenue of Honour earlier this week for taking 12 wickets against India there in 2014.
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