Dodemaide on Lyon’s exclusion for first time since 2013 putting ‘Exceptional circumstances’ behind his exclusion.
‘Exceptional circumstances’ behind Lyon’s exclusion, says Australia selector Dodemaide.
Australia selector Tony Dodemaide acknowledged that Nathan Lyon was frustrated by the decision to leave him out of the last Test match against the West Indies at Sabina Park, citing “exceptional circumstances” brought about by the pink-ball day-night match.
Lyon has been a constant in the team since the 2013 tour of England, when he was first passed over in favour of Ashton Agar, with the exception of the three Test matches he missed due to injury during the 2023 Ashes. He took six wickets in Grenada, putting him one wicket short of Glenn McGrath’s 563, which is Australia’s second-highest Test-match total.
Dodemaide claimed that although the decision “didn’t come naturally for everybody,” they were convinced that spin would have a limited effect after looking at the scant statistics from pink-ball Dukes games, Australia’s training sessions, and the fact that daylight passes swiftly.
“It’s something that wasn’t front of mind, certainly a difficult [decision], but we thought the exceptional circumstances justified having the four quicks so that we could rotate those guys and keep the pressure on,” Dodemaide said. “On a well-grassed surface and a hard surface with lots of night time play hours, that was the best way to win the game.”
“But the key in here is it’s a conditions-based decision to go with the four quicks,” Dodemaide said. “What we found here with the limited data that we have on particularly the pink Dukes ball… [is] that it actually behaves a little differently to the Kookaburra one. It doesn’t go as soft.
“The Kookaburra one tends to have a trough when it doesn’t move so much in those middle overs. That’s not the case with the Dukes one, the history tells us that, and that’s been our live experience when we’ve been here for the past couple of days in terms of the practice sessions that we’ve had. We’ve seen out here in practice the last couple of days that the ball does, big ball does a lot and it’s very difficult for the batters.”