Australia vs. Pakistan:Nathan Lyon achieved the remarkable milestone of 500 Test wickets while bowling in the opening Test match. Pat Cummins, the captain of Australia, backed Lyon to play for five more years and tie the record held by the great Shane Warne.

Briefly Put

• In the Pakistan series, Nathan Lyon claimed his 500th wicket in a Test match.
• Nathan Lyon should play five more years of Test cricket, according to Cummins.
• In 2019, Shane Warne made the prediction that Lyon would end up with 700 wickets

Nathan Lyon, an off-spinner from Australia, is only the fourth spinner to reach 500 Test wickets in the history of the game. On Sunday, December 17, Lyon reached 500 wickets and took five wickets in the opening Test of the three-match series.

First Test: AUS versus PAK

After Shane Warner, Lyon is just the second spinner and, all things considered, the third Australian bowler to accomplish the remarkable feat. Regarding the spinner, Australia’s captain Pat Cummins predicted that Lyon would take 700 wickets and possibly surpass Shane Warne’s Test record of 708 wickets. Cummins also backed the player to play for at least four more years.

“It’s still got four or five years to go, at least, with ten games a year,” Cummins said of Lyon as the spinner watched the first Test match end.

“I still think you’ve got 40 or 50 Test matches, that’s four or five years with 10 (matches) a year,” Cummins continued.

The captain said, “Averaging four or five a game, so a couple of hundred (wickets) – that’s 700.”

The idea of taking 700 wickets or even matching the great Shane Warner made Lyon laugh. But Warne was the one who had supported the spinner to accomplish the Herculean feat during the 2019 Ashes.

At the time, Lyon had not played 100 Test matches. “I think he (Lyon) is a chance,” Warne had stated to cricket.com.au in 2019.

“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,” Warne had stated.

The legendary spinner had said at the time, “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 time.”

At the moment, Warne leads Australia in wicket-taking and is the second-highest wicket-taker in cricket history, trailing only Muttiah Muralitharan. With 199 wickets left to gain, 36-year-old Lyon can still claim his 700th wicket in Test cricket.