Ashes: Century man Nathan Lyon deserves to be lauded, not mocked, by envious England fans

Pitching in baseball is an arduous craft, so much so that its exponents tend to start only one in every five games. Heaven knows, then, what the St Louis Cardinals bullpen must have made of their honorary team-mate, Nathan Lyon, as he took to the mound at the London Stadium on Saturday to throw the ceremonial first pitch on a night off between his 99th and 100th consecutive Test matches.

It was on the Ashes tour to England a decade ago that Australia last played a Test without their spinner and, this morning at Lord's, Lyon was due to become just the sixth cricketer ever — and first specialist bowler — to reach a century of uninterrupted appearances.

The list is predictably illustrious, topped by Sir Alastair Cook, who managed a ludicrous 159 in a row, and also featuring Allan Border, Mark Waugh and Sunil Gavaskar, as well as England head coach Brendon McCullum, who played his entire 101 Test career from debut to retirement without skipping a beat for New Zealand.

None of them, it is worth pointing out, was still working as a groundsman into their early twenties: as well as the newest, Lyon is comfortably the most unlikely member of the club, too.

As a feat of physical durability, his century may not seem quite as remarkable as were he a quick, but consider the adaptability required to remain a first-choice selection for 100 Tests when no other spinner has even made it beyond 60. Never in 10 years, in conditions and climes the world over, have Australia looked at a wicket and decided seam overdose might be the way to go, as England have this week in bringing Josh Tongue in for Moeen Ali.

"I think it's a testament not only to how good Nathan is in terms of longevity and fitness and form, but to be able to play 100 [consecutive] Tests means you are getting picked in all conditions," Australian captain Pat Cummins said yesterday. "He is just so valuable to our team I couldn't imagine a side without Nath in there. I've seen they've have gone with four quicks, which is probably as we expected after seeing Moeen's injury last week, but I feel really lucky we've got Nathan."

From gratitude and fortune on one side of the aisle, to belated glances of envy from across it.

Despite having taken more than 100 Ashes wickets across the course of his 122-Test career, Lyon has rarely felt a cricketer widely appreciated on these shores, something intangible (and, at times, audible) keeping England fans regarding their tormentor not as a skilled opponent worthy of a bucket hat doffed but, put simply, as a bit of a pest.

At Headingley in 2019, there seemed particular glee at Lyon's role in Australia's choke, his fumbled run-out gifting England one of a few final lives they needed, and a desperate appeal ignored by Joel Wilson another.

During the last series Down Under 18 months ago, Kevin Pietersen described Lyon as an "off-spinner with zero variations", rather forgetting his own four dismissals at the same supposedly docile bowler's hand.

And only this month, a raucous Hollies Stand at Edgbaston spent five days labelling the 35-year-old a "s**t" version of a bloke with not even half as many Test wickets, who spent much of his first red-ball game in two years being whacked down the ground.

Sure, most of that is mere patter, but if there were ever an undertone of admiration running beneath, it has tended to be of the begrudging rather than "wish you were English" variety once afforded to Shane Warne.

That is until now. England have not had a spinner of anything like Lyon's consistent quality since Graeme Swann, but this summer, with Jack Leach's injury, the chickens have come storming home to roost and even the most partisan supporter could not deny that a switch of spinners at Edgbaston would have the series scoreline reversed, too.