Lyon’s mastery of control and variation has England in a spin
Ashes Extra How Australia’s spinner caused havoc
Line and variation
For all the hype around Australia’s pace attack – much of it justified – arguably the most consistently threatening bowler at the Gabba has been Nathan Lyon.
Australia’s off-spinner claimed five wickets but could have had several more, showing mastery of the conditions and ruthlessness when it came to line and length to hasten England towards defeat.
In the first innings, Lyon bowled a straighter line to the left-handers on day two compared to day one, increasing the percentage of balls he pitched down leg or in line with the stumps from 27 per cent to 47 per cent, and was rewarded with the wicket of Moeen Ali, given lbw.
In the second innings, Lyon combined that tighter line – pitching 34 per cent of his deliveries down leg or in line with the stumps – with the pervasive psychological threat of a variation delivery when, with the last ball of the 26th over, he delivered an arm ball to Mark Stoneman.
The arm ball spun by just 2.03° – his third smallest spinning delivery of the match (he also bowled two arm balls late on the third evening).
The delivery itself was safely negotiated by Stoneman but the lack of turn would have sowed doubt in his mind as to whether he could confidently leave the ball purely on line.
That doubt was clearly evident when, just four deliveries after the arm ball, he played at a delivery from Lyon which pitched 5cm outside off stump. The ball gripped and turned to take the edge to send Stoneman on his way.
Lyon’s tight line and significant spin accounted for two more left-handers: Dawid Malan and Moeen, again, and by the end of England’s second innings his average against left-handers in
2017 had fallen to an astonishing
13.12.
England’s timid response
Although Lyon bowled excellently in both innings, and extracted significant spin, it could be argued that England did not do enough to upset his rhythm.
Typically against Lyon Test batsmen have attacked 25 per cent of deliveries and come down the pitch to 7.6 per cent of deliveries; in this Test against Lyon England attacked 16.9 per cent of deliveries and came down the pitch to 3 per cent, allowing Lyon to bowl accurately and build pressure.
That, in turn, allowed Australia to rotate their three pace bowlers at the other end. On day four, Lyon bowled 20 overs unchanged at one stage, meaning good periods of rest for Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins.
Unsurprisingly, Starc has been grateful for the support. “He’s been absolutely fantastic,” he said last night. “He’s been bowling so well at one end, it allows us to come from the other end in short, sharp spells.”
Moeen’s imperfect pitch
Lyon’s success in the second innings and Moeen’s subsequent struggles in the evening session raised further questions as to why two off-spinners could have two such differing performances on the same pitch. Aside from Moeen’s recent lack of competitive cricket due to a side strain and worries surrounding an injury to his spinning finger, ball-tracking data shows that Moeen bowled two or three kph slower than Lyon and around 50cm fuller than him – both things are likely to have reduced the positive influence of extra bounce from the Gabba pitch.
Lyon’s over-spinning action also extracted 5.07° of spin compared to 3.26° for Moeen. By Freddie Wilde and Ben Jones, analysts at Cricviz