Australian off-spinner Nathan Lyon made a rallying call to his fellow teammates urging them to turn things around after a disastrous tour of Sri Lanka so far has seen them already surrender the three-Test series with a match to go. Lyon also agreed with Australia head coach Darren Lehmann’s assessment that his performances as the team’s lead spinner has been not up to the mark and said that he was hopeful of doing much better in the third and final Test at Colombo which begins next week.
Going into the series as firm favourites, Steven Smith’s side made a bright start to the tour dismissing the hosts for 117 in the first innings of the first Test before things started to go horribly wrong for the world’s No 1 Test side. Led by the spin duo of Rengana Herath and Lakshan Sandakan, who shared sixteen wickets between them, Sri Lanka roared back to clinch the Kandy Test by 106 runs.
The second test at the Galle turned out to be a no-contest as the hosts completely outplayed the opposition who didn’t even manage to bat for ninety overs in both innings put together as Australia lost by 229 runs in the match which finished well within three days.
Lyon admitted that the manner of defeat has been particularly hard to take for the fans but added the players are also hurt at not being able to put up a good enough fight.
"We're all hurting," Lyon told media at the team hotel this morning. "No-one likes losing Test matches for your country, but the thing is now we've had a good chat, the belief's still there in the group. Everyone gets along really well, so if we keep learning from our errors or mistakes and try and move forward that's the only way we're going to get better at playing over here on the subcontinent.”
Despite the helpful pitches, Lyon feels Sri Lanka are fully deserving of their two victories so far but vowed to come back stronger in the third Test match.
“It's a hard place to play cricket, it's not easy. I know we haven't had the results. You've got to give credit where credit's due. Sri Lanka has outplayed us in all areas in the last two Test matches,” he said. "It's now up to us to say 'no excuses, full stop' and go out there and learn and get better and put in a good performance come the third Test match.”
Lyon admitted that he was aware of the comments made by Lehmann and wants to make sure that he keeps on improving with his performances in the subcontinent pitches which he himself feels has been far from impressive.
"Personally, I probably haven't been the best I probably can be but I am learning about bowling in the subcontinent, and I have got high ambitions to perform well in this next Test match,” Lyon said. “I wake up every morning to challenge myself to get better. It's another day for me at training today to go down and get better. I'm looking forward to that challenge and I can't wait for next week."
Talking about his interaction with Sri Lankan spin bowling legend Muttiah Muralitharan, who had joined the Australian team as a bowling consultant ahead of the first Test at Kandy, Lyon said that he has been seeking advice on how to make the opposition batsmen play out of their comfort zone and thus entice them into making mistakes.
"Murali hasn't changed my action," Lyon said of Murali's pre-series instructions. "But he's definitely spoken to me about the mental side of the game over here, and it comes down to challenging the stumps and trying to challenge the defence and make them make decisions off the stumps."
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