Nathan Lyon, Australia’s premier Test spinner, is nicknamed “GOAT” [Greatest of All Time] by his teammates, and is often referred to the same by broadcasters, commentators, and fans.
The nickname ‘GOAT’ was attributed to Nathan Lyon since 2015 when his Australian teammates started calling him the Great Australian off-spinner after the 2015 Australia tour to West Indies. On that 2015 Caribbean tour, Lyon scalped eight wickets in two games at 19.25 even when the pitches were seam-friendly.
Lyon, who was once part of the Adelaide Oval groundstaff, now is among the best bowlers to have donned the Baggy Green. He is, unarguably, Australia’s greatest ever off-spinner – he has bagged 415 Test wickets in 105 Tests and is only behind Shane Warne (708) and Glenn McGrath (563).
In the 1st Ashes test at Brisbane of the 2021-22 series, Lyon completed the milestone of 400 test wickets. He became just the third Australian after Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath to achieve this milestone. He is the 17th overall bowler in the test cricket to do so.
Muttiah Muralitharan, Harbhajan Singh, and R Ashwin have achieved that milestone before Lyon among off-spinners.
Recently, Nathan Lyon recalled a striking incident from 2012 involving Justin Langer.
“It was about my 10th or 11th Test match and we were in Trinidad and Tobago on a West Indies tour,” Lyon recalls.
“Justin Langer was the [Australian team] batting coach at that time and he called me into his room in the hotel just to have a yak.
“He goes: ‘I just wanted to get you in here to let you know that the honeymoon period is over. Now you are a Test cricketer, you have to start performing and getting results for us’.”
He was dropped from the Australian side in Ashes 2013 series. However, he soon regained his spot and became a regular member of the bowling attack. Nathan Lyon is asserted that Langer’s confrontation in 2012 made him a better player.
“That was probably the biggest for me, that ‘this is real’,” Lyon says. “That the honeymoon was officially over.”
Nathan Lyon, now, has had a significant say in the ongoing Ashes series. He’s the leading wicket-taker in the first four Tests with 16 scalps.
QUICK READ: Sir Viv Richards Gave The Best Compliment To Virat Kohli
