Australia’s selectors have another tricky call to make next week: do they stick with Nathan Lyon in a pink-ball Ashes Test at the Gabba, or gamble on an all-seam attack that better matches England’s head-down, high-tempo batting?
Earlier this year in Jamaica Lyon sat out for what everyone swore was a one-off. The numbers on the pink Dukes, plus a surface that looked like asphalt, persuaded the panel that spin would be little more than decoration. The punt worked. The match was done inside three days, nobody passed 50, West Indies were routed for 27 in the last dig and the quicks—Mitchell Starc 6 for 9, Scott Boland a hat-trick—split the spoils.
That was supposed to be a rare outlier. Lyon’s home record is imposing, and he reminds anyone who asks that he can influence a game in any conditions. Yet the evidence keeps piling up on the other side of the ledger. He delivered two overs in Perth last week as England were hustled out for 67 across two innings. He sent down just one over in last year’s pink-ball Test in Adelaide against India and none at all in the Hobart day-nighter during the 2022 Ashes.
Andrew McDonald, never one for drama, said the discussion will happen—as usual—but warned against reflexively benching the off-spinner. The pink Kookaburra, he noted, often goes soft in the afternoon, a period when Lyon has bailed the side out more than once.
Lyon’s durability is worth recalling. Since debuting in 2011 he has missed only one home Test—WACA, 2012—when Australia opted for four quicks against India.
“The conditions in the West Indies, we were on the record around saying it was compelling to leave Nathan out,” McDonald said on Monday.
“It’s not something that we like doing. It’s not a starting point for anything. And even if you look at the Perth Test match, people will sort of question that he only bowled two overs and speculation will begin for the pink-ball Test. But we felt as though in the Perth Test, if that game had been elongated, that the spinner would have come into the Test.
“It wasn’t to be. Both batting units on day one, there was a lot of error in that which accelerated the game. So I don’t think it’s something that we sit here right now and decide upon. It’s something when we get there, we look at the conditions, the pink ball and how it goes.
“And if you looked at Australian pink ball cricket in general terms, the middle sessions have been quite benign, and Nathan’s done a lot of work there. So I think to jump to the conclusion that you’d automatically assume that it’s just going to be another [fast] bowler sort of dominated game, we can’t make those assumptions.
“Will we ask ourselves the question? Of course. We do every game.”
Put simply, Lyon’s influence in day-night Tests at home has dipped, but the risk of omitting him remains real. Twenty-overs-old Kookaburras turn into over-grown marshmallows and holding lines become precious. England’s batting under Ben Stokes rarely doddles to tea, but if they do, a spinner able to pinch overs and change pace suddenly looks essential.
Conditions at the Gabba can blur the issue further. The pitch tends to start firm, offering carry for the quicks, before slowing under Brisbane humidity. Two years ago, in similar weather against the West Indies, Lyon claimed five wickets and bowled 26 overs—proof that days can stretch, even in a pink-ball game.
The alternative is tempting, though. Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and Starc pick themselves. Boland waits, restless, after his Jamaica fireworks. Lance Morris keeps clocking 150 kph in the nets. Fielding four frontline quicks, backed by Cameron Green’s seamers, would be a nod to both the local soil and England’s “all-out-attack” mantra. It would also let Australia rotate workloads through a congested summer.
Lyon knows all this. He also knows he’s 36 and still chasing the fabled 500-wicket mark. A week on the sidelines, as in Jamaica, stings. But he has seen these mind-games before—remember Adelaide 2014, when India fed him four left-handers and he took 12 for the match.
From England’s side the prospect of no Lyon changes little. They will still look to dominate, step down the track and drag scoring rates north of four an over. Zak Crawley, all flashing blade and hard hands, is no respecter of reputations. Harry Brook rarely lets a spinner settle, but he fancies pace through the line even more.
So the calculation returns: do Australia lean on Lyon’s experience for the lull that may never arrive, or front-load with seam, banking on a three-day finish? The answer, as McDonald implied, probably rests in the 48 hours before the toss, once everyone has poked the Gabba strip and tracked the forecast.
One thing feels certain. If Australia do park Lyon and the pitch misbehaves, the second-guessing will start well before stumps. And if they keep him and he fields at slip for two days without unbuttoning his bowling shirt, the same questions will resurface.
That, essentially, is the spinner’s lot in pink-ball cricket: indispensable until he isn’t, expendable until he’s sorely missed.
