Nathan Lyon’s journey from groundsman to songmaster and 500 Test wickets

Nathan Lyon is one of the most popular members of the current Australia team among his team-mates

This article should have been published in the summer.

As it was, Lyon limped off, England fought back to draw 2-2 and Australia’s off-spinner had to wait for his landmark 500th Test wicket.

But now, six months on and back on home soil, Lyon stands among the all-time greats.

The man who started out as a pitch curator, preparing wickets rather than taking them, has become just the eighth man to take 500 Test scalps with his dismissal of Pakistan’s Faheem Ashraf in Perth.

It has been quite the journey.

“I remember meeting him when he was on the groundstaff at the Adelaide Oval,” says Mike Hussey, the former Australia batter who would go on to play a key role in Lyon’s journey to the 500 club.

“I faced him in the nets for a long time and you could see there was something special about him.”

With Andrew Strauss’ England in town for the 2010-11 Ashes, Australia’s batters needed someone to replicate Graeme Swann.

Lyon, around his duties mowing the outfield, was recommended.

“I remember getting into a one-on-one battle,” says Hussey. “There were no verbals but he is a competitive guy. I am as well and didn’t want him to get me out.

“He didn’t say anything but a few looks he gave me showed me that he was right in the fight, like he was in a Test match himself.”

At this stage, a 23-year-old Lyon was struggling to make South Australia’s second XI. His boss was Damian Hough – the head of groundstaff at South Australia.

“He would leave on a Sunday after the grade cricket, play a four-day second XI Monday to Thursday [in Canberra] and, knowing Nathan, drink all night and jump on the red eye [overnight flight] back to Adelaide,” Hough says.

“He would then come back into work Friday morning.”

Day to day, Lyon’s job was to take charge of preparing the Karen Rolton Oval – one of the smaller first-class grounds in Adelaide.

“He would get in and sneak into the nets,” Hough says. “I only realised this a few years ago when he told me.

“His mum and dad said to me in his first season ‘if he ever gets ahead of himself, you knock him down a peg or two’. I have never had to.

“He was high-energy, positive, cheeky – just a guy that fitted in well with the team straight away.”

The team player in Lyon was on show to the world at Lord’s in June.

The sight of him hobbling down the pavilion steps to bat immobile with a torn calf was one of the moments of the series.

Over the years prior he has become one of the most recognisable figures in the game.

He has the sunglasses, the shiny bald head, the towel neatly tucked into the back of his trousers and the slow walk and skip into one of the most classical bowling actions around. He has been the traditional watercolour artist in an age of neon pink and flashing lights.

But Lyon’s breakthrough came in the T20 format, in the early editions of the Big Bash in early 2011.

“My initial response was ‘you can’t be serious – I need him here working’,” Hough says.

Before long, Lyon was playing for South Australia and, after just four first-class matches, he was called up for a Test tour of Sri Lanka.

Also in the squad for the first time was seam bowler Trent Copeland, who had grown up with Lyon in rural New South Wales.

“My first experience of Nathan Lyon were those M-framed sunnies that covered his entire face at 10 years old,” Copeland says.

“But the night before our debut in Galle we both had these beautifully handwritten and thoughtful letters from Justin Langer, at the time the batting coach.

“Essentially it was ‘welcome to the brotherhood and we are right behind you’.

“Nathan, in his jovial nature after he had spoken to his family, came into the room, both of us in disbelief, and he said to me ‘just two country kids having a bit of a crack, mate’.”

Copeland, right, went on to play three Tests for Australia while Lyon has played 123

Lyon is a notoriously nervous cricketer, even to this day.

At the time, Australia had a buddy system with senior players like Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke and Hussey paired with the younger members of the squad. Hussey and Lyon were buddied together.

“He was really jittery – like a cat on a hot tin roof,” Hussey says, remembering the morning of Lyon’s first Test.

“I said to him ‘are you coming down for breakfast?’ and he said he had already had something to eat two hours ago.”

Lyon’s start in Test cricket has gone down in Australian folklore.

In a baggy shirt that looked two sizes too big, Lyon skipped in, tossed the ball up and had Sri Lanka legend Kumar Sangakkara caught at slip.

He went on to take 5-35 in the innings.

“We were looking at each other like ‘they can’t take that away from us – even if it is our last Test’,” says Copeland, who also struck in his first over.

“This guy from the country, a very receding hairline, he had no idea of his ability.

“After idolising players like Ricky Ponting, standing next to them wearing a baggy green with them saying well done on the five-for – Nathan was pinching himself and to some degree he is still like that now.”

To suggest it has been a straightforward trajectory from there to becoming Australia’s most successful finger spinner – only leggie Shane Warne has taken more wickets – would be wide of the mark.

In 2017 it was Lyon who burned a slice of toast in the New South Wales dressing room, causing a Sheffield Shield match to be halted.

“He got a little sidetracked and the alarms started going off,” says Copeland, who was in the NSW XI.

“The game was delayed and everyone was looking around for why but you had that distinct burnt toast smell and Gaz walking out saying ‘sorry about that’.”

More seriously, throughout his early career, Lyon was doubted by those pining for the magic of Shane Warne or those calling for a pace barrage from Mitchell Johnson and co.

Hussey, though, decided Lyon was the man to take on one of the most revered positions in Australian cricket – the team’s songmaster.

“It was a changing era, not just in Australian cricket but in generations of people,” Hussey says.

“The younger guys coming through were a different breed. They weren’t the old school cricketers I was brought up with.

“I still loved some of those old school values and I saw a lot of those values in Nathan Lyon, despite him being a new generation player.

“He really did respect the history of the game, the past players, the game itself and hard work and humility.”

The songmaster leads the Australia team song, Under the Southern Cross.

For Australian players it is a iconic tradition passed from one generation to the next when the incumbent retires.

Hussey was given the role by Langer, who had it given to him by Ponting. Before that, David Boon, Allan Border and Rodney Marsh held the role. Hussey, to this day, has a poster of the lineage on his wall.

“I told Nathan in another letter,” Hussey says. “I passed him the letter and told him and he started shaking. He didn’t know what to say.

“He didn’t think he was worthy and didn’t think he was the right man for the job and I kept assuring him ‘you’ll be fine, you are the perfect man’.”

As well as singing, the songmaster decides when the song is sung – usually after special victories – and hypes up team-mates by recapping performances of individuals in the match.

“He got a little bit of criticism from a couple of players along the way,” Hussey says.

“He gets nervous before Test matches and apparently gets even more nervous before the team song. Apparently a couple didn’t go down all that well but I believe he is nailing them now.”

When Australia sing to celebrate Sunday’s first-Test victory over Pakistan, Lyon will look to nail it again.

He will do so with 500 wickets to his name and as an unexpected Australia legend.

So much so, legendary Australia commentator Kerry O’Keeffe compared him to a Hollywood superhero, played on the big screen by Melbourne-born Chris Hemsworth.

As Lyon stood at the top of his mark on 499 Test wickets, O’Keeffe said: “He’s normally a bumbling mess, but as soon as he gets the ball in his hand, he goes from Mr Bean to Thor.”

Australia’s very own off-spinning superhero.