It’s not until Nathan Lyon is missing that Australia realises how much they need him

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Opinion

December 5, 2025 — 8.38am

The first time Australia missed Nathan Lyon was the time he usually comes on, shortly before the long break.

Instead, Joe Root and Zak Crawley had the relative comfort of facing some steady right-arm trundling all the way to their dinner. Root, a good player of spin, is even better against medium-paced bowling that is drifting onto his pads.

The next time Australia missed Lyon was after the break, when their idea of variety was to have Brendan Doggett and Michael Neser set about a tactical bouncer attack.

Crawley was out, but this was the period when Root consolidated his start into a proper innings, aiming at that long-awaited first Test century in Australia, without the challenge of Test cricket’s best off-spinner.

It looked like Australia were missing Lyon especially badly when Ben Stokes came in at 4-176.

Lyon has been more effective against Stokes than any other Australian bowler, and his omission asks the question of whether Australia aren’t taking Stokes seriously enough.

Lyon was spinning a ball of a different kind ahead of the first day’s play.

In any case, a Joe Solomon-like throw from Josh Inglis put paid to Stokes, for now, and saved too much embarrassment. For now.

Root reached his century late in the night, and no Australian could begrudge him that in his 30th attempt across four series.

It was telling that when he nicked Mitchell Starc towards first slip when he was barely in, the ball didn’t quite carry, and Steve Smith couldn’t scoop it up when diving across from second.

The pitch was perfect for batting and lacked the carry that has troubled Root for 12 years.

Joe Root shrugs towards the England dressing room after reaching triple figures.

If he was ever going to make a hundred in Australia, this was the day.

Speaking honestly, he would have been pleased to see another right-arm trundler in the attack instead of Lyon.

The final time, on day one, that Australia missed Lyon was in the last half-hour when Root and Jofra Archer carved out 61 bonus runs when their teammates were kitted up and ready to come out and field.

Amid all the talk of tricky declarations and Australia blatantly wasting time to stop one, Root kept batting normally. He shared the spotlight with six-wicket Starc, two experienced Test cricketers normalling their way to greatness.

Some orthodoxy from Australia, in the form of a 562-wicket bowler, might have cut off England’s tail at this point. Already without Patrick Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, to voluntarily add Lyon to the absent list smacked of overthinking, if not deliberate self-harm.

Momentarily, it seemed Australia was also going to miss Lyon’s skills as a night watchman, for surely he would have been sent out to bat if needed. So much pink-ball war-gaming, so many permutations, when Root and Starc were showcasing the virtues of simple orthodoxy.

It would have been orthodox to select Lyon instead of having four right-arm fast-medium bowlers, but Australia put one twist too many on it and ended the night in a lesser position than they might have been. We can’t know, of course, what difference Lyon might have made – though we do know that when he was invalided out of the 2023 Ashes series, Australia didn’t win another game.

There are still ways in which Lyon will be missed in this Test match. Starc was sore for the last of his 19 overs, as was Scott Boland as they took the brunt of the Root-Archer counter-punch.

Mitchell Starc produced another fine display of bowling.

Had Lyon played, the state of the pitch suggested he would have lightened Starc’s load and kept him fresher for when he has to try to bowl England out again.

And a final note. Over rates are one of the most boring subjects in cricket, but Australia will face penalties for only getting through 74 in a day, among which are points docked in the World Test Championship.

Those penalties are too low: 74 overs in a day is, simply, a travesty, and a direct consequence of Lyon’s absence, which should be punished in the current match.

Australia will hope that they’ve paid the full price for Lyon’s omission; with the sun and heat in the forecast, however, they’ll be missing him most on the weekend.