Veteran Australian spinner Nathan Lyon believes that rival players often serve as the "best coaches", acknowledging that his Indian counterpart Ravichandran Ashwin has "taught" him a great deal through their faceoffs since 2011-12. (More Cricket News)
💖Having made their Test debuts in the same year, Lyon and Ashwin will face each other for the eighth time in the longest format during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy five-Test series beginning in Perth on November 22.
👍"Ash (Ashwin) is an incredible bowler. I’ve gone head-to-head with him for basically my whole career, so I’ve learned a lot from Ash," Lyon told Fox Cricket.
👍"He’s an incredibly smart bowler, and he’s able to learn and adapt very quickly, and I think the best bowlers in the world are able to do that. He used his skills to benefit himself and his team.
🌼"So, you’ve got to give credit where credit’s due, he was the best bowler (in 2020/21), as he usually is. So, hats off to Ash."
🐻It will be Ashwin's fifth Test tour of Australia, where he has claimed 39 wickets in 10 Tests at an average of 42.15.
♍Lyon further admitted to having studied Ashwin's bowling closely, especially before Australia toured India in the last few years.
﷽"He’s taught me a lot,” Lyon said. “I’m a big believer in the players that you play against are your best coaches that you eventually come across."
✨"I’ve watched a lot of his footage heading over to India, the way he goes about it here in Australia, see if I can pick up anything.
"The way I look at cricket ▨is that I’ve never met anyone who has conquered the game, never played against or with anyone who’s conquered the game.
♒"There’s so much to learn in this great game, and there’s so much for me to learn from Ash. He’s a world-class bowler. He’s taken over 500 Test match wickets, and he should be extremely proud of that."
♕Ashwin outshines Lyon in terms of having the best bowling average outside Asia, with the former averaging 33.14 compared to the latter's 30.09.
📖However, the Australian averages better in Asia than the Indian -- Lyon: 30.81, Ashwin: 21.76.
♓Asked if they could face again post this tour, Lyon reckoned, “Spin bowling is a craft that the older you get, the better you get with age.
✅"There’s definitely no limit for me, and I don’t think there should be a limit for us as well. He’s absolutely world-class, and there’s a series in a couple of years’ time. So, who knows?"
🔯Asked the secret of his success on non-spinning tracks, Lyon quipped: "I know Jadeja reads all of this stuff, so I can’t really share all my secrets."
ꦿ"My big thing is spinning up the back of the ball and getting bounce, but it’s a hard craft to be able to do that in Australia. Your size for error is extremely small,” he said.
ꦛThey may not have won a Test series against India in nearly a decade, but Lyon feels their World Test Championship final triumph last year would give them the edge.
💃"India’s got the wood over us in the past few series, but if you’re looking at the World Test Championship (final) in England, we were able to beat them there, and I know that should give us a bit of confidence heading into (this summer)," Lyon said.
🥂"We understand that we’re coming up against a world-class side, but we can take a lot of confidence out of where we are at as an Australian cricket team."
🌱"I feel like we’re on the journey to becoming a great team. We’re not there yet. There’s a bit of work to do, but we have the opportunity to do something pretty special this summer."
♑India are reeling from an unprecedented 0-3 home defeat against New Zealand, a result Lyon believes will make the second-ranked team even more determined.
ℱ"I think they’re extremely dangerous. They’re a class outfit, and they know their best preparation and how to come out here and perform. It’s going to be a cracking Test series.
๊"It’s been a long ten years since Australia’s held the trophy. There’s only a few of us that would probably be in the squad that’s actually held the trophy, so it’s time to bring it home," he concluded.
