“He’s got country boy hands and strong fingers, the ball feels right at home in it,” says John Davison, aka the Spin Whisperer, and the satisfaction in his Queensland burr is clear.
“It’s a testament to his action and the work he has done over the years. He doesn’t put too much strain on his back or knee, he can go on forever,” he adds with a chuckle. It’s a statement that will strike fear into the hearts of batsmen the world over and leave the game’s great bowlers looking nervously over their shoulders. Nathan Lyon has just taken his 500th (and 501st) Test wicket and it doesn’t look like he’ll be retiring anytime soon.
Lyon’s backstory and position in the match will be well-trodden in the coming days and weeks. Pakistan’s Faheem Ashraf’s historic wicket in Perth, pegged in classic Lyon fashion, will inevitably spark conversations about both his pedigree and his future.
Related: Humility and heart: how Nathan Lyon became the silent key to Australia’s success
It’s a story. Lyon is a shy country boy from the South Western Slopes town of Young – ‘The Cherry Capital of Australia’. From playing against his brother, Brendan, in the backyard, his journey has seen him play against 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 away to perform curation duties (groundsstaff) at the Adelaide Oval while playing in Grade cricket for nearby Prospect.
From there it’s the proverbial whirlwind – a few standout performances in the germination stages of the Big Bash and a handful of Sheffield Shield games led to him being pushed into the Australian Test side in 2011, where he took a wicket with his first ball . No less than Kumar Sangakkara. Twelve years and 500 Test wickets later, only Warne and McGrath are above him on the all-time wicket list for his country.
“It’s scary because he’s actually getting better,” Davison said. “And he plays a lot of his Test cricket in a place where [Australia] that’s absolutely cruel to the finger spinner.
Davison first came across Lyon when the former was working on a spin program for Cricket Australia and traveling around the United States to identify new talent. In Canberra he came across a skinny 18-year-old who was “bowling to himself and wasn’t that impressive”. They have worked together occasionally since then. Davison was appointed spin coach for the Australian men’s team in 2013/2014 and had a specific role as a mentor for Lyon.
Lyon has called Davison “the best spin coach in the world” and added: “Davo is the only person I really trust… I have a fantastic relationship with him. He knows my technique inside and out and he is the one who can step up and give me honest feedback when I need it.”
Today it is a less formal, but still fruitful relationship. Just over three weeks ago, on the precipice of 499 wickets, Lyon sought a session ahead of the Perth Test against Pakistan. “He just texts me and usually he comes to Brisbane, but this time I went to Sydney,” says Davison. “He hadn’t bowled as regularly because of the calf injury in the Ashes, so we 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 at the 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 was there for the low moments – the self-doubt and the pressure Lyon felt as he found himself trying to rein in the role of Australia’s No. 1 Test spinner, especially in the years after Warne, when the knives fell out due a perceived lack of effectiveness in the second innings.
That Lyon got through these difficult periods, withstood the criticism and began to perform consistently at the highest stage came as no surprise to Davison. ‘He is so hungry, he wants to constantly improve. He said to me the other day that he is going to play county cricket in Lancashire next year and that he wants to play in all competitions and improve his white ball skills. I have no doubt he will continue to get better.”
As a player, Davison is perhaps best remembered for his 67-ball century for Canada against the West Indies at Centurion in 2003, the fastest World Cup century at the time. He was also a crafty off-spinner who often opened the bowling in one-day internationals, memorably taking 17 wickets in Canada’s first first-class match in over 50 years (in 2004) to top (at the time). First-flax bowling figures (at the time) since Jim Laker’s 19-wicket haul against Australia at Old Trafford in 1956.
Davison, now 53, is a sought-after private spin coach; he has recently teamed up with Australian leg-spinner Mitchell Swepson and is passionate about discovering new talent in Queensland and beyond. He has an impressive gray mottled beard in the mold of WG Grace or Charles Darwin, but it is revolutions rather than evolution that make his whiskers twitch.
“I’ve been traveling around the country testing spin bowlers for over 15 years,” he says, “and there’s a piece of technology developed by a company called Trackman that is specifically designed to measure the spin of a cricket ball. When a finger spinner can get over 2,000 RPM (revolutions per minute) on the ball, I start to get excited. If it’s over 2,200 RPM, that’s almost a whole different ball game.
The inevitable question follows: how are Lyon doing? “It’s the top of the tree – it runs between 2,200 and 2,400 rpm. No one I’ve come across has really come close to that as a finger spinner.”
Lyon are 62 Test scalps behind Glenn McGrath on the all-time list; furthermore, the next spinner above him is Anil Kumble – 118 wickets in the distance. A quick look at his career stats, combined with his fitness and oft-stated desire to improve, indicate he could overcome both with a few more years of transplant. Davison agrees: “Nathan is really reaping the rewards now. He has great attacking speed around him and has all the experience. He is a well-oiled machine with so much cricket left in him. If he stays on the park, the next few years could be his most successful yet.”
Earth wind and fire
Rovman Powell’s West Indies side has kept The Spin warm over the last few dark days and long nights. With some of their big names returning to the crease, they are scorching the stands and England’s fingers with a muscular, six-hitting swagger.
West Indian cricket is often described in terms of the elemental – from the pyrotechnics of their global franchise-reared T20 stars, to the ice-cold Viv Richards and the faster-than-the-wind – Fire in Babylon – by Holding, Roberts and Malcolm Marshall.
In the introduction to the newly released version by Vaneisa Baksh Son of Grace – an excellent, unsparing and incredibly thorough biography that sheds new light on the life and legacy of Frank Worrell – Baksh describes how a “freakish comparison” of the personalities and styles of Worrell, Clyde Walcott and Everton Weekes, “reveals the three Ws ‘ who defeated the West Indies and world cricket in the 1950s, could call on the elements of earth, wind and fire:
“Worrel, the oldest would be the wind – sometimes cool and refreshing, sometimes gusty and fierce, but always defined by a delicate and elusive force. His batting was unanimously praised for its style and grace: this was a man of finesse who reveled in the artistry of the game. His late cuts were his trademark.
Walcott, the giant was fire: sheer strength and endurance that often made it impossible to extinguish. In song he raged imperiously and heated every ground.
To soften, the youngest and smallest of the three, was no less powerful, but he was not fond of lofty explosions, relying instead on masterful technique and an astute mind to read the ball early. Sixes were not his preference, he rather scored along the ground. By temperament he was a man of the earth, rooted in an upbringing that kept him close to the philosophy of his founding heritage.”
Baksh’s book has been praised as “simply brilliant” by none other than Michael Holding, and Spin subscribers can get their hands on a copy for a few quid 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 that extended play thing, and I played both sides of it… I played that thing until my wife said : ‘One more time, and I’m gonna fucking leave you’” – the Spin just spotted this quote horror writer Stephen King gave to Rolling Stone magazine about a month ago. The song in question? Lou Bega’s 1999 earworm and theme tune cricket on Channel 4 – Mambo No 5. “A little bit of…”
Do you want more?
Humility and heart: how Nathan Lyon became the silent key to Australia’s success. By Geoff Citroen.
England’s dismal defeat to India in the one-off women’s Test follows a worrying pattern under Jon Lewis, writes Raf Nicholson.
Barney Ronay on why we’ll miss David Warner and his core villain energy.
Usman Khawaja challenges cricket’s uneasy relationship with activism, writes Daniel Gallan.
And England’s newest recruit Shoaib Bashir talks to Taha Hashim about living a crazy dream after being picked for the Test tour of India after just six first-class matches.
Memory strip
Pace bowling royalty, in various sizes. Curtly Ambrose, playing his fourth Test, is front and center after taking four wickets in England’s first innings at Trent Bridge against the West Indies in 1988. But Malcolm Marshall, right behind him, and ten years into his international career, was playing with top-level figures. six for 69. Marshall, perhaps the greatest West Indian quickest of them all, finished the five-Test series with an excellent 35 wickets at an average of 12.65 as the visitors won 4–0.
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