SULTAN OF SPIN

Nathan Lyon’s 4-0 off six deliveries against Pakistan moved him to fourth on Australia’s list of Test wicket-takers and stamped him as one of our all-time greats.

NATHAN Lyon spent the winter months steeling himself to be a leader of Australian cricket’s resurgence.

But the 31-year-old spinner’s stunning opening day performance in Abu Dhabi, taking four wickets in six balls, cemented him not just a man for the now, but a great of alltime. There’s no denying Lyon’s status any more. With 314 Test wickets, he’s fourth on the all-time list of Australian bowlers, sitting comfortably among names revered as legends. He’s played 80 Tests, but has come so far in his past 20 that Brendan Lyon is in awe of what his little brother has achieved.

“I don’t think you could ever imagine that could happen. I think you pinch yourself a lot to see what he’s doing, and 80 Test matches later too,” the older Lyon said yesterday.

“It doesn’t happen all the time. He battled that first innings of the first Test, but he seems to, every now and again, pull something out of the hat.

“It was one of those things for quite a while, is he going to get another Test? And to see him doing that now, it’s quite remarkable. It’s still something we can’t quite believe.”

Lyon was on the verge of being dropped from the Test team before the Boxing Day Test in 2016. He’d played four Tests that home summer, taken just eight wickets and wasn’t getting the job done.

But a wicket on the third ball of his opening over at the MCG against Pakistan, a ball that had been set-aside for an all-of-crowd gee-up for the man known as “Garry”, sparked a resurgence that hasn’t stopped. Since then Lyon has taken 94 more wick- ets, in just 18 Tests, and jumped from 14th on the Aussie list to fourth, steaming past Richie Benaud, Jason Gillespie and Craig McDermott. In Tuesday’s six-ball stretch in Abu Dhabi he jumped over Brett Lee and Mitchell Johnson, too.

Lyon has assumed a position in the pantheon of alltime greats, and when he’s done he’ll probably even have gone past the great Dennis Lillee (355).