Lyon: As soon as the ball spins there's more eyes on TVs

Adelaide Oval curator Damien Hough is determined to avoid creating a pitch where spin bowlers are ineffective. His comments come as Nathan Lyon, despite a limited role in the Ashes series so far, emphasized the importance of spin in Australian cricket.

Hough and Lyon, former colleagues at the Adelaide Oval, shared a moment on Monday during Lyon's induction into the Avenue of Honour. The honor celebrates Lyon's outstanding Test performances at the ground, including his 12 wickets against India in 2014. Lyon joins cricket legends like Sir Donald Bradman, Shane Warne, and Mitchell Johnson on the Chappell Stand's outer wall.

This recognition occurs at a time when Lyon is approaching a milestone of 562 Test wickets, just two shy of surpassing Glenn McGrath as Australia's second-highest Test wicket-taker. That said, the reality is a bit more complicated. he was not selected for two of the previous three Tests and bowled only two overs in the other at the beginning of the Ashes series.

Despite Lyon's recent limited opportunities, Hough is confident that the Adelaide Oval pitch will offer spin, as demonstrated in the three Sheffield Shield matches held there this season. Lyon is expected to return to Australia's lineup, even though England has chosen to keep part-time offspinner Will Jacks instead of their primary spinner, Shoaib Bashir.

"[Spin is] really important," Hough stated on Monday. "I don't want to be the curator at Adelaide where you don't pick a spinner. Spin needs to play a part here. It always has. Even last year when [Lyon] didn't bowl a lot of overs, I felt that the pitch would have spun. But Pat [Cummins] was able to take wickets with the quicks but spin needs to play a part in pitches around Australia, and we want it to play a part."

Lyon bowled only one over in Australia's previous Test at Adelaide, a pink-ball match against India in 2024. This partly explains his exclusion from Australia's two most recent day-night Tests, as selectors believe spin is unnecessary in those conditions.

In his last two red-ball Tests in Australia, Lyon has bowled a total of only eight overs. He bowled six overs in the SCG Test against India in January and two in the first Ashes Test in Perth. When asked about the importance of curators preparing pitches that support spin bowling, Lyon responded, "Well, you're asking a spinner."

Lyon added, "I think it's incredibly important. I think the variation in Test cricket, understanding that Test cricket goes for five days, and there's a lot of opportunity for pitches to wear and spinners to be able to produce their craft."

"I've always said as soon as the ball spins there's more eyes on TVs, and I stand by that. You look at when we go over to India, and you look at the conditions there, and the exciting cricket when the ball is spinning, how many people pay attention to it. So for me, spin is incredibly important in the game of cricket, in junior cricket, in first-class cricket, in white-ball, red-ball, it doesn't matter what format, what game of cricket, I think spin plays a massive role here."

Lyon bowled 15.3 overs in the last day Test in Adelaide in January 2024. The match concluded before lunch on day three. While Lyon took three wickets, two were of West Indies' No. 11 Shamar Joseph, who was caught out attempting to score quick runs at the end of both innings, as the visitors scored only 188 and 120 in a 10-wicket loss.

That game had considerable seam movement and inconsistent bounce. That said, the reality is a bit more complicated. Hough attributed this to a different grass type used on the drop-in pitch, which has since been discontinued.

"That was a Legend pitch, Legend is a grass variety," Hough explained. "This is a Santa Ana Couch, what we've used since 2013, outside of two years. We'll go back to what we know. It's still that mat of grass. We still want that, and we just want to get the compaction right and the moisture levels right. Once the coin is tossed, it's over to the players."

Spin has been a significant factor in the Sheffield Shield matches this season. Victoria's Doug Warren, a left-arm orthodox bowler, achieved a career-best 5 for 69 in the opening round in early October. Queensland legspinner Mitchell Swepson, who has played four Tests for Australia, claimed 10 wickets in mid-October. South Australia included two spinners in their most recent match against Tasmania, and both took wickets. There have been five team scores exceeding 300, with a highest of 426. Seven individual centuries have been scored, including one by Marnus Labuschagne. South Australia seamer Wes Agar has a five-wicket haul, and Test seamer Michael Neser has one of four four-wicket hauls also taken by seamers. All three red-ball Shield games have had a result, with the only Shield game this season to end in a draw being a rain-affected day-night pink-ball game.

"Our Shield pitches have played really well," Hough said. "They've been a really good contest. The feedback has been really good."

"We're just are trying to get a contest between bat and ball."

"The calibre of bowlers step up at international level. We know that compared to Shield level. But we've got some hot weather, and you would expect with hot weather that the spinners will come into it because of that hot weather."