Nathan Lyon and Adelaide Oval curator Damien Hough shared an easy hug on Monday, a quiet moment on a ground they both know better than most. Lyon was back to see his name added to the Avenue of Honour on the western side of the ground – a nod to those 12 wickets against India in 2014 – and Hough was there because the surface he is tending this week might decide whether Australia again trust their premier spinner.
Adelaide is set to host the third Ashes Test, Australia leading 2-0. Lyon, stalled on 562 Test wickets, needs just two more to go past Glenn McGrath and sit second on the country’s all-time list. Yet he bowled only two overs in Perth and was left out entirely in Brisbane and Hobart across the last three pink-ball matches. The risk for Hough is obvious: produce another deck that screams “pick four quicks” and he becomes the first curator here to strand a spinner on the sidelines.
That prospect does not sit well with him.
“[Spin is] really important,” Hough said 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.”
Evidence from the first-class season supports him. In three Sheffield Shield matches at Adelaide this summer, seamers have still done plenty of work, but every game has seen meaningful turn from days two and three. South Australia’s young left-arm spinner Lloyd Pope grabbed six for 73 in October; NSW’s off-spinner Chris Green collected a tidy four-for in November. Lyon watched those games closely from the boundary rope while rehabbing a slight calf niggle. The messages he sent to team-mates were upbeat: there is something in that surface for me.
Selection remains in Pat Cummins’ hands, of course. Australia’s captain has leaned on the comfort of four seamers under lights, citing the pink ball’s tendency to nip even after 70 overs. That call left Lyon out against India here in 2024, and the temptation is similar now, especially with Scott Boland fit again. England, interestingly, have flown the other way by persisting with part-time off-spinner Will Jacks and keeping their front-line tweaker Shoaib Bashir on drinks duty.
Lyon understands the debate better than anyone and delivers his view without raising the volume.
“Well, you’re asking a spinner,” Lyon said. “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 p”
Even with the sentence trailing off, the point is clear enough. Lyon knows audiences enjoy the cat-and-mouse of a spinner drawing a batter forward, sniffing for dip, drift or bite out of the rough. Hough shares that view. He points out that Adelaide’s square has been re-laid twice in the last decade, partly to retain the clay blend that allows cracks to open without disintegrating. “You want the quicks involved early, then the spinners later,” he says. “That’s Test cricket in this country at its best.”
From a broader angle, Australia’s coaching staff recognise they will tour the sub-continent three times over the next two years. Putting the nation’s main spinner on ice at home is hardly ideal preparation. Former Test batter Callum Ferguson, now calling games for radio, agrees. “If you pick your best XI, Lyon is in it nine days out of ten. The pink ball doesn’t magically remove footmarks,” he told SEN on Sunday.
A decision is due at the toss on Thursday. Rain is forecast for day one, but the curators insist the pitch will get enough sun across the match to dry and crumble. Team sheets will reveal whether Cummins buys that argument. Either way, Hough’s reputation – and Lyon’s pursuit of McGrath – might hinge on just how much the ball starts to grip once shadows lengthen on days four and five.
