‘It’s just an empty space’: Aussie off-spinner Nathan Lyon on not having the 300-wicket milestone ball | Cricket News
While Nathan Lyon will be leading the spin attack for Australia in the Border-Gavaskar trophy, the 36-year-old off-spinner has shared how he hasn’t seen the ball, with which he took his 300th test wicket during the infamous ball tampering scandal third Test against South Africa in Cape Town six years ago.
While the Test was embroiled in ball tampering allegations and captain Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft being banned Cricket Australia for respective terms, Lyon had claimed his 300th Test wicket removing Kagiso Rabada. Incidentally, the ball tampering allegations had occurred in the 43rd over of South Africa’s second innings, Rabada’s dismissal was the second new ball in the innings.
“(Kagiso) Rabada stumped was my 300th wicket. It was at the Cape Town Test. I haven’t seen that ball since, unfortunately. Yeah, I think with everything that happened that game, they took it to have a look at it all,” Lyon told The Daily Telegraph on Saturday.
With match officials including match referee Andy Pycroft taking the second new ball too in their custody after the end of the day’s play, Lyon was left waiting to see the feat-achieving ball. The off-spinner shared about contacting former Australian cricketer and now a match referee David Boon to track the ball. “It was actually David Boon. I bumped into him on the balcony of the team hotel in the Covid summer of 2020-21 and being an ICC match referee he reached out to them (the ICC) through his work and tried to find it, and apparently it’s gone missing. Don’t know where it is. There’s been no more correspondence. It is what it is.” added Lyon.
While the off-spinner is the leading wicket-taker in Border-Gavaskar trophy with a total of 121 wickets in 27 matches, the off-spinner will be competing against India in a five-match Test series for the first time in his career. He currently has 530 wickets in 129 Test matches with Stuart Broad being his 100th, Dhananjaya de Silva his 200th, Dawid Malan his 400th and Faheen Ashraf being his 500th wicket. Lyon has all the other four balls at his home and sees the 300-milestone ball as the missing one.
“My wife has done an amazing piece of artwork where she’s put all the milestone balls or achievements on a wall at home which looked pretty special. To see the success I’ve been able to have and understand that all the hard work can pay off. I’ve collected from the start. It goes back a long way but it’s something I’m proud about and now my girls are starting to get old enough to ask questions about what’s this and what’s that. I am grateful for that but at the end of the day I guess I can just throw a ball in there and say it’s the 300th and no one will know, will they? (At the moment) it’s just a blank space,” said Lyon.
