“Longevity and fitness and form”: Pat Cummins as Nathan Lyon is all set to play consecutive 100th Test

London [UK], June 28 (ANI): Australian captain Pat Cummins praised his fellow teammate Nathan Lyon for his longevity, fitness and form as Lyon would play his consecutive 100th test match in Lord’s.

Lyon on Tuesday will play his consecutive 100th test match, becoming the only spinner to achieve his milestone in cricket history.
“It’s a testament to not only how good Nath is in terms of longevity and fitness and form, but to be able to play 100 Tests means you’re getting picked in all conditions,” Australia skipper Pat Cummins said at his pre-game media conference as quoted by cricket.com.au.

In 121 test matches, Lyon has picked 495 wickets with an average of 30.99. His best bowling return is 8/50 in an innings and 13/154 in a match.

Lyon’s contribution to Australia’s men’s Test team clearly goes beyond his impressive skill set as he has not been dropped since 99 matches.

“I know at the start of his career, you’d talk about (possibly playing) four quicks at the Gabba but he’s just so valuable to our team that I couldn’t imagine a side without Nath in there.

England’s Playing XI will be without their experienced all-rounder Moeen Ali who was omitted following the finger injury he sustained at Edgbaston last week. And therefore England are going with four seamers however Cummins feels lucky that they have Lyon on their side.

I’ve seen they (England) 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 Nath,” Cummins further added.

Australia will look to make their lead 2-0 while England will try to equalize the scorecard in the second test match of the Ashes Series at the historic Lord’s on Wednesday.

Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wk), Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis (wk), Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Todd Murphy, Michael Neser, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, David Warner.

England squad: Ben Stokes (c), James Anderson, Jonathan Bairstow, Stuart Broad, Harry Brook, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Josh Tongue, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood