Australia prepare themselves for cricket life without Nathan Lyon as the spin veteran faces a long road back.
This week at the MCG, Australia will get a glimpse of what life will be like without Nathan Lyon. The veteran offspinner will have a difficult time returning to Test cricket following hamstring surgery.
After sustaining a severe right hamstring injury in the field on Sunday, the last day of the Adelaide Test, Lyon, 38, underwent surgery on Tuesday. Lyon’s return date was not specified by Australia coach Andrew McDonald, although it is anticipated that he will be out for at least three to four months.
Until a two-Test series against Bangladesh in Darwin and Mackay in August 2026, Australia will not play any more Test cricket. They will play at least 20 Test matches over the course of a 12-month period, starting with a three-match tour of South Africa, four home Tests against New Zealand, five Tests in India, a one-off home Test against England in March 2027 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Test cricket, and an away Ashes series in June and July of 2027, which may come after another WTC final if Australia qualifies.
Lyon has long expressed his desire to play in the 2027 Ashes, when he will be 39 years old, and McDonald said he was keen to return. Two years after suffering a serious calf injury in 2023 that did not require surgery, McDonald reaffirmed that Lyon was an important part of their strategy for the 2027 tour of India, but he emphasised that it will be a long road back for him.
“He’s pretty shattered,” McDonald said on Tuesday. “He’s facing a long recovery timeframe, so I’ll leave that up to the medical team, but all I know is it’ll be pretty long.
“After the surgery, I think we’ll get more information as to what they’ve done. The scan will tell us one thing, but I’d imagine that the surgeon will give us a report, and then they’ll give us a rough length of time, and it’s going to take a lot of hard work.
“That type of injury, it’s going to be a hard period for him to obviously get back to where he was but he still wants to do it, and that’s the main thing. India is on the horizon. He’ll be a key part of that. We’ve got New Zealand before that, and we’ve got South Africa before that.
“I think in Adelaide, it was probably the best I’ve seen him bowl for a little while in terms of the shape and the energy he had on the ball. So, yeah, get through this rehab and then look forward to what it looks like.”