'Another 500 to go': Cummins bullish on Lyon's future

Now that Nathan Lyon has answered the long-lingering question of whether he might become the first Australia finger-spinner – and just the second exponent of that skill in the game's near 150-year history – to capture 500 wickets, the next ponderable is how much further he can go.

Since announcing revised ambitions to pursue his international career for at least another four years, Lyon has been contrastingly coy on whether he's eyeing a personal target of Test appearances (currently 123) or wickets (now 501) alongside his team aspirations to finally win series in India and England.

When quizzed as to how long he might realistically continue, the 36-year-old habitually answers he's "not prepared to put a number on it".

And when asked directly in the wake of Australia's thumping 360-run win over Pakistan in the opening NRMA Insurance Test if he'd crunched numbers on which of the other seven members of the 500-club he might reel in before retiring, his dead-bat response was "I failed maths at school."

However, his patently more numerate captain Pat Cummins obligingly did the mathematics as he sat alongside his spinner at a post-match media conference and calculated that Shane Warne's Australia record of 708 victims might not be as distantly unachievable as has long been accepted.

"Still got another four or five years at least, with ten games a year," Cummins mused with some mental arithmetic while Lyon looked on.

"I still think you've got 40 or 50 Test matches, that's four or five years with 10 (matches) a year.

"Averaging four or five a game, so a couple of hundred (wickets) – that's 700."

Lyon simply laughed at the prospect, but given the success of his rehabilitation from the calf injury that sidelined him for the final three Tests of Australia's Ashes campaign and his on-target return of 5-80 from 32 overs in his comeback outing, it can't be discounted as outlandish.

It was during the 2019 Ashes tour, and two years before his tragically premature passing that Warne himself crunched the numbers and concluded Lyon – who had then recently reached 350 Test wickets – might indeed overtake the benchmark set by the leg spinner upon his retirement in 2007.

"I think he (Lyon) is a chance," Warne told cricket.com.au at the time with Lyon closing in on 90 Test appearances.

"If you do the stats – if he plays another 85 or 90 Tests, and takes four wickets per game, that's 360 wickets – so he'll get me.

"I'd love to watch someone get my record, that would be fantastic because it would mean they've done bloody well for Australia for a long period of time."

Warne then added, with what would prove eerie prescience: "Hopefully I'm still alive to see it … because I'd love to present him with a bottle of wine and say well done."

That ceremony clearly won't take place.

And before he can set his sights on second place on the all-time wicket-takers table (behind Sri Lanka's Muthiah Muralidaran on 800) he must overtake West Indian Courtney Walsh (519), fellow Australian Glenn McGrath (563), England duo Stuart Broad and James Anderson (604 and 690 respectively) and India leg spinner Anil Kumble (619).

But provided he remains fit, Cummins sees no reason why the veteran won't remain an automatic selection in the Australia Test XI for the foreseeable future given the role he continues to perform and which was so clearly missed after he sustained the calf injury at Lord's.

"I think it's no secret that he's probably the most important cog in our bowling line-up," Cummins said.

"This game was probably a little bit different, but most games he's probably bowling 30 overs a day.

"You can basically put him down one end and he's not going to go for many runs, he's going to take a few wickets and us quick bowlers can just rotate through the other end.

"No doubt he was missed over there in England, even as a captain it's much easier knowing that a bloke that's played 100-odd Test matches, that knows his craft and can bowl in pretty much any conditions you just let him get to work.

"It's great having him back … another 500 to go."

There's an even more glaring statistic that underscores Lyon's value to Australia's reigning world champion men's Test outfit.

Australia have not won a Test without Lyon in their starting XI since he was omitted in favour of four fast bowlers (Ryan Harris, Ben Hilfenhaus, Mitchell Starc and Peter Siddle) for the January 2012 encounter with India at the WACA Ground, a stretch of 117 matches across those 12 years.

True to type, while welcoming the rare milestone that was reached when he had Pakistan lower-order batter Faheem Ashraf adjudged lbw on review, Lyon expressed concern his personal achievement was overshadowing a more crucial contribution.

Lyon cited the 126-run stand between Usman Khawaja (90) and player of the match Mitchell Marsh (69no) earlier on a challenging Perth pitch against a highly credentialled Pakistan pace attack as the factor that set up the bowlers' barnstorming finish with their rivals skittled for 89 in 30.2 overs.

He also expressed relief upon getting through his first Test since "blowing up" his right calf – the first injury setback he's suffered in his record-breaking international career – with no noticeable ill effects from his prolonged stint on the sidelines.

"That first 30 overs on the second night, there was a fair amount of anxiety," Lyon revealed.

"I don’t think I've ever cramped after 10 overs, and I was cramping in both calves but all-in-all it's pulled up really well.

"I can only speak volumes for the medical staff of Cricket Australia and Cricket New South Wales, and the work we've done together.

"I'm feeling really confident in it. There's been a lot of hard work go into the journey, and I've had a lot more bad days than good days.

"But to be back out there in the middle after doing my calf, with a special group of people, it's pretty special to be able to take 500 in my first Test back."

NRMA Insurance Test series v Pakistan

First Test: Australia win by 360 runs

Second Test: December 26-30, MCG (10.30am AEDT)

Third Test: January 3-7, SCG (10.30am AEDT)

Australia squad: (first Test only) Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Lance Morris, Steve Smith, Mitch Starc, David Warner

Pakistan squad: Shan Masood (c), Aamir Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Khurram Shahzad, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Noman Ali, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wk), Saud Shakeel and Shaheen Shah Afridi