A lot of club cricketers scoff at off spin, and think its easy to play. It may be why people are incredulous at Lyon's performance. The devil is in the details (i.e. subtle variations, which are actually VERY difficult to achieve at the top level).
This article sums it up perfectly. Lyon has learnt a lot from the drubbing handed out to him by Younis Khan in the UAE - he learnt from his mistakes, and added subtle variations to his stock delivery. Using these variations effectively (i.e. planning the correct sequence to set up the batsmen) has helped him outfox the Indians. As a budding offie myself, I really enjoyed reading this...
http://www.espncricinfo.com/india-v-australia-2016-17/content/story/1085297.htmlWe witnessed, perhaps, the best bowling from an overseas spinner in India. The pitch in Bengaluru was a typical Indian pitch, which had cracks running right through but they were neither wide nor loose on the first day. The islands between those cracks were firm and even though the pitch was a little drier than expected for the opening day of a Test match, it was nowhere close to what we saw in Pune. KL Rahul's innings showed that barring a couple of balls misbehaving, there were no demons in the pitch that can't be negotiated with skills and application. Considering these factors, Nathan Lyon's 8 for 50 become unforgettable. He didn't start as Steven Smith's first-choice spinner at the beginning of the day but ended not only on a hat-trick (which he could complete in the second innings) but also as arguably the best Australian bowler on the tour thus far.
We must focus and spend some time on reading Lyon's pitch map against the right-handers (he bowled only a few deliveries to Ravindra Jadeja) and it will not only highlight the accuracy (the grouping shows that there was nothing too full or too short) but also the line that was reasonably outside off. By bowling that line, he probed both edges of the bat and created doubts.
Nathan Lyon's beehive to right-handers © ESPNcricinfo Ltd
The beehive highlights the amount of extra bounce he managed to extract from the pitch. The best bit about Lyon's bowling is his action, for he puts his entire body behind the ball. In addition to that, he puts a lot of revolutions with the seam pointing towards leg slip (not even fine leg) and that allows him to get more bounce than the rest. There is a lot of over-spin and very little of side-spin in Lyon's bowling and the reason for that could be his conditioning to succeed on hard Australian surfaces. Since there is very little grip available in Australia, he has used bounce as his key weapon to attack.
The following four dismissals highlighted the whole repertoire of Lyon's skill set.
Cheteshwar Pujara c Handscomb b Lyon 17
While facing spinners, the first thing you must judge (besides reading the spin) is the length, for that determines your primary response of either going forward or deep inside the crease. Lyon got the ball to kick sharply so often that those lines got blurred right in the beginning of his spell. The ball that dismissed Pujara was a classic case of the extra bounce creating problems as it pitched at a length that forced the batsman to contemplate coming forward but since it wasn't close enough to smother the spin, Pujara probably got stuck in two minds and also at the crease. The ball took the inside edge onto the thigh pad en route to the fielder at short leg.
Virat Kohli lbw b Lyon 12
The ball that dismissed Kohli would seem like another error of judgment in reading the line from the Indian captain, but to know why it happened we must look at the first ball of the same over. The first ball landed a couple of feet outside off (into the rough created by Mitchell Starc), spun and jumped to hit Kohli on the waist. Once the batsman sees that happening, the strategic and technical response is to avoid putting bat to ball for similar deliveries, for there are two fielders (short leg and leg gully) to catch the flick off the back foot and it's not always possible to ride the bounce and play it along the ground against a viciously turning ball. A similar delivery consumed R Ashwin later in the day and that is a fine example of the dangers of attempting to ride the bounce against spin. There was nothing wrong with Kohli's planning but he picked the wrong length and line to let one go. the fifth ball of the over was a lot fuller than the one that jumped and a little closer to the off stump too. It's not easy to deceive a top batsman in the air but Lyon did that, once again.
Ajinkya Rahane st Wade b Lyon 17
The subtle variation in the air accounted for Rahane. Most of Lyon's deliveries would start angling into the right-handers and the turn would further accentuate the problems, but on this occasion the ball drifted away ever so slightly in the air and foxed Rahane. Earlier in the spell, Rahane had hit a lofted drive over the midwicket fielder and, perhaps, was trying to repeat something similar. This time, though, the ball kept going away from him after pitching, and that was enough to beat the bat. Another classical offspinner dismissal.
Wriddhiman Saha c Smith b Lyon 1
Lyon kept the shiny part of the ball towards his palm and bowled it a little flatter with the palm facing skywards. The reason of doing so is to ensure that the ball lands on the shinier surface and goes straight while skidding through the surface, and that's exactly what it did. Saha got deceived with the trajectory when the ball pitched outside off and he went back to nick the ball to Smitha at slip. Yet another excellent display of top quality finger-spin bowling.
Aakash Chopra is the author of three books, the latest of which is The Insider: Decoding the craft of cricket. @cricketaakash
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Topic: India vs Australia Test series (Read 104234 times)