‘He’ll keep getting better’: Lyon’s spin mentor predicts best still to come

Coach John Davison has worked with Nathan Lyon since his youth and says his 500th wicket can spur him on still further

“He’s got country boy hands, strong fingers, the ball looks completely at home in them,” says John Davison, aka the Spin Whisperer, the satisfaction in his Queensland burr plain to hear.

“It’s testament to his action and the work he’s put in over the years, he doesn’t put too much strain on his back or his knee, he could go on forever,” he adds with a chuckle. It’s a statement that will terrify batters the world over and have the great bowlers of the game twitchily looking over their shoulders. Nathan Lyon has just chalked up his 500th (and 501st) Test wicket and doesn’t look like stopping any time soon.

Lyon’s backstory and standing within the game will be well trod in the next few days and weeks, the landmark wicket of Pakistan’s Faheem Ashraf in Perth, pinned lbw in classic Lyon fashion, will inevitably lead to talk of both his origins and his future.

It’s some story. Lyon is a shy country kid from the town of Young in the South Western Slopes – “The Cherry Capital of Australia”. From playing against his brother, Brendan, in the backyard, his journey has seen him take on adults twice his size in club matches, moving as a teenager to play representative cricket in Canberra and then on to Adelaide and an oft-mentioned stint carrying out curation (grounds-person) duties at the Adelaide Oval while turning out in Grade cricket for nearby Prospect.

From there it is the proverbial whirlwind – a smattering of eye-catching performances in the germination phase of the Big Bash and a handful of Sheffield Shield games led him to be thrust in to the Australian Test side in 2011 where he took a wicket with his first ball. Nicking off Kumar Sangakkara no less. Twelve years and 500 Test wickets later, only Warne and McGrath stand above him in the all-time wicket list for his country.

“It is scary because he’s actually getting better” says Davison, “And he’s playing a lot of his Test cricket in a place [Australia] that is absolutely brutal for the finger spinner.”

Davison first came across Lyon when the former was working on a spin programme for Cricket Australia and travelling around the states to identify new talent. In Canberra he came across a skinny 18-year-old who, “bowled around himself and wasn’t that impressive”. They’ve worked together on and off ever since. Davison was appointed as spin coach with the Australian men’s team in 2013-14 and had a specific remit to mentor Lyon.

Lyon has called Davison “the best spin coach in the world”, adding: “Davo is the one person I really trust … I’ve got a fantastic relationship with him. He knows my technique inside out and he’s the one that can come up and give me honest feedback when I need it.”

Nowadays it’s a less formal but still fruitful relationship. A little over three weeks ago, on the precipice of 499 wickets, Lyon reached out for a session in the run up to the Perth Test against Pakistan. “He just flicks me a text and usually he comes to Brisbane but this time I went down to Sydney,” says Davison. “He hadn’t been bowling as regularly because of the calf injury in the Ashes so we just worked on a few things to get the feeling back – wrist position, getting on top of the ball, things like that. It doesn’t happen as often as it used to because he’s on top of his game but we still have these check ins. I don’t know if he does it for me or for him … but it’s always good, and heartwarming after all this time.”

Davison has been there for the low moments – the self-doubt and pressure that Lyon felt as he found himself trying to hold down the role of Australia’s No 1 Test spinner, notably in the post-Warne years when the knives were out due to a perceived lack of second-innings effectiveness.

The fact Lyon came through these tough periods, rode out the scrutiny and started to deliver consistently on the highest stage came as no surprise to Davison. “He’s so hungry, he wants to improve all the time. He was just saying to me the other day about going to play county cricket in Lancashire next year and how he wants to play in all the competitions and improve his white ball skills. I’ve no doubt that he’ll keep getting better.”

As a player, Davison is perhaps best remembered for blasting a 67-ball century for Canada against West Indies at Centurion in 2003, the fastest World Cup century at the time. He was also a cunning off-spinner who would often open the bowling in one-day internationals, memorably taking 17 wickets in Canada’s first first-class match in more than 50 years (in 2004) to chalk up (at the time) the best first-vlass bowling figures (at the time) since Jim Laker’s 19-wicket haul against Australia at Old Trafford in 1956.

Davison, now 53, is in demand as a private spin coach; he has recently been working with the Aussie leg-spinner Mitchell Swepson and is passionate about unearthing new talent in Queensland and beyond. He sports an impressively grey flecked beard in the mould of WG Grace or Charles Darwin but it is revolutions rather than evolution that get his whiskers twitching

“I’ve done over 15 years of travelling the country testing spin bowlers” he says, “and there’s a piece of technology created by the Trackman company that is designed specifically to measure spin imparted on a cricket ball. If a finger spinner can get over 2,000 RPM (revolutions per minute) onto the ball then I start to get excited. If it is over 2,200 RPM then that’s almost another ballgame entirely.”

The inevitable question follows – how does Lyon fare? “He’s top of the tree – he operates between 2,200 and 2,400 RPM. No one that I’ve come across has really come close to that as a finger spinner.”

Lyon is 62 Test scalps behind Glenn McGrath on the all-time list; beyond that the next spinner above him is Anil Kumble – 118 wickets in the distance. A brief glance at his career statistics coupled with his fitness record and oft-stated desire to improve suggest that he could go past both with another few years of graft. Davison agrees: “Nathan’s really reaping the rewards now. He’s got a great pace attack around him and has all the experience. He’s a well-oiled machine with so much cricket left in him, if he stays on the park then the next few years could be his most successful yet.”

Earth, wind and fire

Rovman Powell’s West Indies side have been keeping The Spin warm through the recent dark days and long nights. With some of their big name players returning to the fold they’ve been scorching the stands and England’s fingers with a muscular, six-hitting swagger.

West Indies cricket is often described in terms of the elemental – from the pyrotechnics of their global franchise reared T20 stars, to the ice cool of Viv Richards and the faster than the wind – Fire in Babylon – of Holding, Roberts and Malcolm Marshall.

In the introduction to Vaneisa Baksh’s newly released Son of Grace – an excellent, unsparing and incredibly thorough biography that shines a new light on the life and legacy of Frank Worrell – Baksh describes how a “whimsical comparison” of the personalities and styles of Worrell, Clyde Walcott and Everton Weekes, “the three W’s” who bestrode West Indies and world cricket in the 1950s, could invoke the elements of earth, wind and fire:

“Worrell, the eldest, would be the wind – sometimes cool and refreshing, sometimes gusty and fierce, but always defined by a delicate and impalpable force. His batting was unanimously heralded for its style and grace: this was a man of finesse who relished the artistry of the game. His late cuts were his trademark.

Walcott, the giant, was fire: pure power and stamina that rendered him often impossible to extinguish. On song, he raged imperiously, heating up any ground.

Weekes, the youngest and shortest of the three, was no less powerful, but he was not given to lofty explosions, instead he relied on masterful technique, and an astute brain to read the ball early. Sixes were not his preference, rather he scored along the ground. In temperament, he was a man of the earth, grounded in an upbringing that kept him close to the philosophy of his grassroots heritage.”

Baksh’s book is hailed as “simply brilliant” by no less a figure than Michael Holding and Spin subscribers can get hold of a copy with a couple of quid knocked off right here.

Quote of the week

“Oh, yeah. Big time. My wife threatened to divorce me. I played that a lot. I had the dance mix. I loved those extended play things, and I played both sides of it … I played that thing until my wife just said, ‘One more time, and I’m going to fucking leave you’” – the Spin has just spotted this quote from horror writer Stephen King given to Rolling Stone magazine a month or so ago. The song in question? Lou Bega’s 1999 ear worm and theme tune to cricket on Channel 4 – Mambo No 5. “A little bit of …”

Still want more?

Humility and heart: how Nathan Lyon became the quietly turning key to Australia’s success. By Geoff Lemon.

England’s dismal defeat by India in the one-off women’s Test follows a worrying pattern under Jon Lewis, writes Raf Nicholson.

Barney Ronay on why we will miss David Warner and his main villain energy.

Usman Khawaja challenges cricket’s uncomfortable relationship with activism, writes Daniel Gallan.

And England’s newest spin recruit, Shoaib Bashir, talks to Taha Hashim about living a crazy dream after being picked for the Test tour of India after only six first-class matches.

Memory lane

Pace-bowling royalty, in different sizes. Curtly Ambrose, playing his fourth Test, is in front having taken four wickets in England’s first innings at Trent Bridge against the West Indies in 1988. But Malcolm Marshall, right behind him, and a decade into his international career, had starred with figures of six for 69. Marshall, perhaps the greatest West Indies quick of them all, finished the five-Test series with an outstanding 35 wickets at an average of 12.65 as the visitors won 4-0.

Contact The Spin …

… by writing to James.

In?

To subscribe to The Spin, just visit this page and follow the instructions.