Nathan Lyon marked his return to Australia\u2019s XI with an immediate impact on Day 2 of the third Ashes Test at the Adelaide Oval, dismissing Ollie Pope in his very first over as England slipped to 41 for 2.<\/p>\n
Introduced unusually early by Pat Cummins, Lyon justified the call straight away. Tossing the ball up invitingly, the off-spinner tempted Pope into a flick, only for the England batter to pick out Josh Inglis at mid-wicket. The sharp low catch completed a crucial breakthrough and underlined Australia\u2019s aggressive intent as England continued to trail by a massive 330 runs.<\/p>\n
Lyon\u2019s early success came just minutes after Cummins had already struck to remove Zak Crawley, leaving England under pressure despite a fluent start from Ben Duckett, who moved to 29 off 28 balls. Joe Root then walked in with the visitors two down and facing a stern examination.<\/p>\n
The wicket was especially significant given Lyon\u2019s recent absence from the side. The 38-year-old had missed two of Australia\u2019s last three Tests, with team management opting for an extra pacer in pink-ball day-night fixtures. Adelaide, however, has traditionally offered more assistance to spinners, and Cummins was quick to exploit that history.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the Test, Lyon had spoken about his mindset following time away from the XI. \u201cI\u2019ve played 140 Test matches, I feel like I don\u2019t have a point to prove to anyone,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m very clear on my role within this Australian cricket team. I love representing Australia, and if I get that opportunity again, I\u2019ll keep doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
That opportunity arrived early on Day 2, and Lyon made sure to grab it with both hands, reminding everyone why Adelaide has so often been his happy hunting ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nathan Lyon marked his return to Australia\u2019s XI with an immediate impact on Day 2 of the third Ashes Test\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":250,"featured_media":32864,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cricket"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}