HEART OF LYON FOR AUSSIES
ONLY nine bowlers in Test history have taken more wickets than Nathan Lyon after our greatest off-spinner bowled Australia to its first victory in Sri Lanka for a decade inside three days in a stunning Galle result.
Lyon, with spin partner Mitch Swepson and a brilliant four-wicket second-innings cameo from Travis Head, outperformed the home team’s slow bowlers on a spinning pitch.
The Sri Lankans couldn’t muster the skill of the 109-Test star, who entered the top 10 of all-time wicket takers in the second innings.
Lyon’s four second-innings wickets added to the five he took in the first, giving him match figures of 9-121 as he demolished a wilting Sri Lankan batting line-up unable to produce the sort of fight expected by a home crowed buoyed by a one-day series victory that proved a false dawn.
It was Test cricket played in fastforward, with 30 wickets falling inside just six full sessions – after the loss of play on a chaotic day two – and the Sri Lankan batsmen scoring at more than five runs an over on day three before a calamitous collapse.
Set just five runs to win, a six from Australian opener Usman Khawaja sealed the victory before lunch on day three, the match lasting just 155 overs, putting it inside the 20-fastest Tests of all time.
Attacking batting from the home team as they looked to force the Australians, 109 runs in front after the first innings, to bat again proved their undoing, losing wickets as rapidly as they were making runs.
Lyon, inserted at the northern end where he bowled 25 first-innings overs, broke through first before Swepson (2-34), bowling in the fifth over in a rare dual-spin attack so early for Australia, joined the party.
They snared the opening four wickets, with keeper Alex Carey taking a screamer to remove Sri Lankan captain Dimuth Karunaratne, one of his five catches for the game in an assured effort behind the stumps.
Then two wickets in his first over from part-timer Head gave him the same number as Lyon and Swepson before lunch as Sri Lanka completely collapsed on a crumbling pitch.
Head finished the job, taking 4-10 in just three overs to leave the Australians just five runs to win.
With first-day batting failures of Head, Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith forgotten, it proved an all-conquering performance from the Aussies, who matched their win at Galle in 2011, the only one of that series, and showed themselves to be a different unit from the team swept aside 3-0 in 2016.
Lyon said he’d learnt significant lessons from that tour, and had returned to the island nation a more accomplished and skilled bowler, which played out in the names he went past on the all-time list.
His first day-three wicket put him equal with Australia’s tormentor in its last Sri Lankan tour in 2016, Rangana Herath, on 433 Test wickets. His second wicket, in just his sixth over of the morning, put him equal with Indian legend Kapil Dev on 434.
Every wicket after that inched him towards South African great Dale Steyn (439), a number Lyon, who finished on 4-36 after his demolition job, is likely to pass in the second Test which will also be played at Galle.