Quiet Lyon ready for stern test

Calvin Coolidge, the US president of the 1920s, was so renowned for his reticence that a man once bet the humorist Dorothy Parker she couldn't get more than two words out of him. When Parker told Coolidge of the wager, his reply was simple: "You lose".

Speaking to Nathan Lyon is a similar experience. An uncomplicated character from country New South Wales, Lyon prefers to let his bowling do the talking. And when you've taken a wicket with your first ball in Test cricket, and five in your first innings, that's a fine philosophy.

This time last year, Lyon hadn't been to a Test match, let alone played in one. Not until he was a groundsman at Adelaide Oval last summer did he see Test cricket in the flesh.

When the South Africans visited Australia three seasons ago, Lyon was part of the groundstaff at Canberra's Manuka Oval, a venue that has hosted two one-day internationals, 16 years apart. He followed Graeme Smith's men in fierce battle with the Australians on television, sneaking a couple of hours off work each morning to watch the first session.

"I certainly didn't imagine that I'd be over here in the next series," Lyon said this week, "but I always dreamt of playing Test cricket for Australia and I'm just loving every moment."

Lyon enters the two-Test series as Australia's incumbent spinner. Michael Beer will join the squad in Cape Town ahead of the first Test, which starts on Wednesday, but Lyon is expected to hold his place after a promising start to his Test career in Sri Lanka.

There, he struck with his first ball in Test cricket, a sublime delivery that curled in and turned sharply away to clip the edge of Kumar Sangakkara's bat. Only three more wickets came after the first innings of the series, but Lyon had done enough to encourage the selectors he was the man for the job in the immediate future.

When asked if he knew what to expect from the pitch at Newlands, where the first Test starts on Wednesday, Lyon said he "wouldn't have a clue". It was a fair call for a man who was yet to visit Cape Town. But reports from the locals suggest the Newlands surface should offer something for the slow bowlers, whereas the fast men will be favoured in the second Test at the Wanderers.

All the same, Newlands is the venue where the legspinner Bryce McGain was belted out of Test cricket on debut in 2009, when he finished with match figures of 0 for 149 from 18 overs. The conditions in South Africa are unlikely to be as friendly for spinners as those in Sri Lanka, but Lyon was unfazed.

"I wouldn't say it's daunting," he said. "I would say it's challenging and I'm always up for a challenge, that's why we play the game. It's definitely going to be a good challenge for every one of us but especially with me being a spin bowler it's going to be pretty tough but I'm certainly looking forward to it."

Shane Warne certainly enjoyed bowling in South Africa, where he took 61 Test wickets at 24.31. Lyon is the 11th spinner Australia have used in the post-Warne era, but he said he was not worried about those who had gone before him.

"I haven't really thought about it," he said. "I'm a totally different bowler to Shane Warne, he was the best in the world so I've got my own ambitions and goals to achieve and not worry about what's gone past. I'm here at the moment and hopefully I'll keep striving to get better and just confident in my own skill set at the moment."

Lyon warmed up for the first Test with 2 for 40 in the second innings of the tour match in Potchefstroom. Those wickets came from successive deliveries, a fine delivery that bounced and turned away from JP Duminy and caught the edge of the bat, and then a ball that didn't spin as much as the right-hander Farhaan Behardien expected, and he too nicked behind.

Lyon bowled 18 overs in the match, on a pitch more suited to the fast men. He will have a heavier workload in Cape Town, especially if Trent Copeland is left out and Lyon becomes the containing bowler.

Coolidge used to sleep 11 hours a day, including a two-hour afternoon nap while he was in the White House. They might share a similar quietness, but there will be no such siestas for Lyon over the next fortnight.