Nathan Lyon has ended a painstaking wait for his 400th Test wicket, finally reaching the magical milestone early on Day 4 with the wicket of Dawid Malan.
After a wait which lasted almost the entire year, Lyon had Malan caught at silly mid-off by Marnus Labuschagne for 82, ending a 162-run partnership for the third wicket.
The wicket was met with a raucous reception from Lyon’s Australian teammates after a 326-day wait for the veteran off-spinner between his 399th and 400th Test wicket.
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Malan’s scalp early was a major source of relief for Lyon and Australia, after it was revealed that a bizarre non-appeal meant they missed a chance to dismiss the Englishman on Day 3.
The incident occurred when Malan was on 37, when he seemingly padded the ball back to Lyon.
However, he later admitted that he “might have got away with one”, revealing that the ball had caught his glove on the way up off his bat.
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“I did ask Tuck (umpire Rod Tucker), but he gave me nothing,” Lyon told Fox Cricket when asked about the incident.
“It was only Josh Hazlewood at mid-on that asked, ‘Do you want to go upstairs?’, but I thought the guys square of the wicket might have seen something different.
“It is pretty hard, especially front on if it just nicks the glove.
“But that’s the way cricket guys and you have to make your own luck sometimes.”
Lyon becomes Australia’s first off-spinner to reach the 400-wicket mark, and the third Australian behind Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath.
He is the 17th player in Test history to take 400 wickets and the fourth off-spinner, behind Muttiah Muralitharan, Ravichandran Ashwin and Harbhajan Singh.