Nathan Lyon has given away the job of leading Australia’s victory song, but he has not – repeat, not – packed away his Test whites. After more than a decade belting out Under the Southern Cross I Stand, the off-spinner has passed the honour to wicketkeeper Alex Carey. The timing, he insists, has nothing to do with retirement.
“I’ve been very honoured to first lead the song, but to have it for 12, 13 years, it’s been one of the biggest highlights of my career,” Lyon said during the first Test in Barbados. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while now, but this definitely doesn’t mean I’m retiring anytime soon. There’s no talk about me retiring or even thoughts coming in my head.”
That exchange sums up Lyon neatly: sentimental about tradition yet clear-eyed about future targets. Two remain at the top of his list – winning Test series in India and England. “I’ve always said I want to win away in India, and I want to win away in England,” he continued. “Obviously, we’ve got that opportunity in a couple of years’ time, but we’ve also got to take it Test by Test and make sure we’re doing everything here and getting the games here in West Indies right. Then we’ve got a massive summer at home with the Ashes. But also, another World Test Championship final will be on my cards.”
The hand-over itself happened quietly. Lyon had planned to pass the baton at the World Test Championship final had Australia lifted the mace, but South Africa’s win delayed things. Instead, late on day two in Bridgetown he slipped a handwritten note under Carey’s hotel-room door. “It’s more about the team environment and making sure that I get the opportunity to pass it on to someone who I look at and absolutely love and the way he goes about it on and off the field,” Lyon said. “I just feel like Alex is the perfect candidate. I feel like I ran my race with it and it’s time for someone else to put their touch on it.”
Song-mastering is a quirky Australian ritual dating back to Rod Marsh. Mike Hussey handed it to an 18-Test-old Lyon in early 2013 and, since then, the spinner has sung after 67 victories from 119 matches. The renditions that stand out? Adelaide 2015, the first Test after Phil Hughes’ passing, and the night Australia wrapped up a 5-0 Ashes sweep in 2013-14.
Statistics – always dangerous with a player still active – suggest he has plenty more choruses left. Lyon reaches four wickets per Test almost as routinely as he lands his front foot. He started this Caribbean tour on 530 dismissals; if he keeps his current clip and stays on the park for the 21 Tests that fit into the present World Test Championship cycle, he’ll breeze past 600. From there, Shane Warne’s 708 looms as the next milestone, though Lyon rarely mentions numbers unless prompted.
Longevity also pops up in other ways. He and Mitchell Starc are the only survivors of Australia’s 2012 trip to the Caribbean. “There’s been a lot of hard work that goes in behind the scenes that a lot of people don’t see,” he reflected. “But I was sitting on the balcony this morning thinking, st, I was here in 2012.”
Coaches argue his bowling is aging well. The subtle drift is still there, and his overspin – the attribute that makes finger-spin bounce and bite – has not faded. Former Test tweaker Nathan Hauritz thinks the tweak to Lyon’s approach will be workload rather than method. “He’s smart enough to skip the odd white-ball tour, save the body, and extend the Test side of things,” Hauritz told ABC radio last week.
Carey, for his part, looked mildly stunned when the dressing-room chorus turned to him. “It was pretty special,” the keeper said in a mid-innings interview. He joined in plenty of those earlier versions when Lyon led; now it is up to him to choose when to start and how long to stretch the final note. Teammates expect little change – a slow build-up, handshake line, then full voice.
What, then, is next? Australia still have one Test in Jamaica on this trip, where Starc is in line for his hundredth cap. A home summer brings another Ashes defence followed by yet more subcontinental planning. Lyon, assuming normal service – soft hands on the ball, brisk into his spell – will remain central to all of it. Giving up a song does not mean giving up wickets.
If anything, the move feels practical. He keeps the ritual alive by passing it on while still playing, and he frees himself to focus on those loftier aims – breaking India and England, and maybe re-writing the record books. For now, though, he is content to hum from the outfield, wait for Carey to call the tune, and then hunt the next dismissal.
