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New South Wales-born Nathan Lyon is arguably the best off-spinner Australia have produced in Test cricket. Lyon also holds the record for most Test wickets against India by a spinner. Former India Test skipper Rohit Sharma recalled a time he felt that Lyon is not as good as a bowler who can keep mid-on up. During Cheteshwar Pujara's wife Pooja's book launch event, Rohit narrated the incident when he sent a message to take on Lyon. In Indore, India had suffered a collapse and Pujara was standing tall but Rohit wanted him to throw Lyon off the track.
"We wanted to get Nathan Lyon off the track a little bit. We wanted to get some runs quickly. We probably were looking at declaring or something. We were like... ‘no, something needs to change now. Maybe, a message would do good’. The entire time, he was bowling with mid-on up. I was like, he's not that good of a bowler to keep mid-on up," Rohit said at the event as quoted by Hindustan Times.
"I know it was a challenge, the pitch was turning square but we needed to get runs quickly. So I had to send Ishan. It's one thing that we send messages. The most important thing is.. sometimes what batters do is whenever someone comes out with a message, we know exactly why he's there. So I would stop him there only!" he added.
India lost the Indore Test by a big margin
While Pujara did manage to hit Lyon for a six, he could not help India post a defendable target on the board. He got out after scoring 59 runs from 142 balls, including five fours and a six. Axar Patel who walked out to bat at no.9 was left stranded as Lyon rushed through the tail and registered an eight-wicket haul to bowl out hosts for 163.
India lost the match by nine wickets in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2022-23. That was Pujara's last Test fifty. He scored 42 runs in Ahmedabad Test. Then, in the World Test Championship (WTC) 2023 final against Australia, he registered scores of 14 and 27 at Kennington Oval. He hasn't been able to make a comeback to the Test squad since.
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