Australia may not be the favourites to win the first Test, trailing as they are by 219 runs with only six wickets in the hand, but Nathan Lyon believes the hosts can pull off a miracle here.
The off-spinner, who hastened the end of India’s second innings with a six-wicket haul (6/122), recalled their effort against Pakistan in Dubai recently where they managed to draw from a precarious position with Usman Khawaja leading the way with an epic 151 (522 balls).
"We just spoke about Dubai,” said Lyon after the day’s play. “We still believe we can win this, and that's the best thing. We still believe we're in this game, it's just about coming out tomorrow, winning the first ball, first over, first hour, just breaking it down, very simple. We need to not complicate things, enjoy ourselves, compete hard and fight our backsides off. It was actually Tim (Paine), just saying, we've had that belief before when our backs have been against the wall, but we've got a massive sniff here, I believe anyway, in this Test match,” he offered.
Australia’s saviour in Dubai, Khawaja, is already out but Lyon believes Shaun Marsh and Travis Head, the batsmen in the middle at the moment, have it in them to do it for the home team.
"In my eyes I think Shaun Marsh is a superstar,” Lyon noted. “I've bowled to him a lot in Shield cricket and he's whacked me all over the ground. I think he's one of the best batters going around, definitely one of the best batters in Australia. I think Shaun will be pretty relaxed tonight. He'll hopefully have a good sleep and not overthink things. That's one of the big things; as cricketers we can overthink things and that can be our downfall. Shaun's a pretty laidback fella, especially away from cricket.
"I was speaking to him before, he's got the belief he can come out and make a hero of him and Travis tomorrow. He spoke to me about playing off-spin and I said ‘Shaun, you've just got to back yourself, you're one of the best batters in the world and you've played me enough in the nets, you know how to play off-spin.’ So, I think Shaun's quite confident. He may not look it, but I guarantee he's very confident and he has the belief he's going to be that hero who stands up tomorrow and wins this game of cricket for Australia,” he declared.
