Ouch! R Ashwin 'helped' Nathan Lyon turn things around

Nathan Lyon had a deep desire to compete with Ravichandran Ashwin, the No 1 spinner in the world on the tour of India. To achieve his objective, he spent countless hours analysing his counterpart

India off-spinner R Ashwin

Bangalore: Nathan Lyon had a deep desire to compete with Ravichandran Ashwin, the No 1 spinner in the world on the tour of India. To achieve his objective, he spent countless hours analysing his counterpart's release points and the manner in which he zeroed in on a batsman's weakness.

There was plenty to obtain, but the challenge for Lyon was to filter how much of that analysis suited his style of bowling.

In Pune, he experimented with his pace and seam. But on the opening day of the second Test in Bangalore on Saturday, the minute he realised Mitchell Starc was creating footmarks for him to zoom in on, he went back to his conventional method. The seam was pointing to leg-slip and the pace of his deliveries was slightly slower than Pune.

Lyon bowled 16 consecutive overs from the pavilion end in which he did not bowl a single ball shorter than six metres and none over four metres. Plus, every ball landed on or outside the sixth stump line which meant the batsmen found it impossible to judge the degree of turn.

It was a spell that was reminiscent of the one he bowled against India at Adelaide on a Day Five pitch in 2014. But even during that heroic spell (7-152) Lyon had erred in his line and length.

One of the important traits he picked up from Ashwin's game was field placements. Throughout his Saturday spell, he left the cover region open and lured the batsmen to drive through the vast space left on the off-side. But his precise length meant only Virat Kohli was able to drive him for a single four through the covers.

"I don't know what to say. I watched a lot of Ashwin tapes, but I stuck to my strength of getting bounce," Lyon told reporters on Saturday.

Nathan Lyon

Lyon's wider lines ensured the Indian batsmen were not able to tuck him easily behind square on the leg-side. In Sri Lanka, he had been guilty of bowling too straight which meant the batsmen scored more than 50 of the runs against him behind the wicket on the leg-side. Here, he only conceded 18 in that region. Whatever Lyon has picked up from Ashwin via those videos, it's certainly working for him.

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