Cricket Australia announced on Monday that Australian batsman Nathan Lyon will be sidelined for the duration of the Ashes series against England. Lyon suffered a calf rupture while fielding during the second test match, which took place at Lord’s.
On Thursday, the second day of the test, Lyon was injured while fielding, which was also the day when the injury occurred. On Saturday, he batted at the number 11 spot despite being hampered, hitting four runs and contributing 15 runs to a partnership with Mitchell Starc.
However, despite the fact that he was unable to bowl due to his absence, Australia was able to pull ahead and win the test by 43 runs on Sunday.
Because the updated 16-player roster does not contain any substitutes for Lyon, fellow off-spinner Todd Murphy is set to make the team after having a successful first test series in India earlier this year.
It is “too early to tell” whether or not Murphy will be an automatic replacement for Lyon, according to Australia’s head coach Andrew McDonald, who added that he would prefer to have a specialist spinner included in the lineup in order to balance out the attack.
According to McDonald, “Todd is in an excellent position.” “We enjoy having a spinner as part of our offensive lineup. It’s a new kind of equilibrium.
“As you saw (on Sunday), at some instances, we had to do it differently without Nathan Lyon down the other end, which is something we’ve been so accustomed to doing. It appeared to be a little disorganized at points.”
Lyon participated in his 100th straight test match at Lord’s as he was taking eight wickets in Australia’s victory in the first match of the series at Edgbaston.
Thursday marks the beginning of play at Headingley for the third match in the five-match series.
Steven Smith, David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Travis Head, Cameron Green, Alex Carey, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Todd Murphy, Scott Boland, Michael Neser, Marcus Harris, Mitchell Marsh, and Jimmy Peirson are members of the Australian squad. Pat Cummins is the team’s captain.