Ashes | Twitter laughs as McGrath acts out after Lyon overtakes him in wicket charts with jaffa

Gantavya Adukia

ByGantavya Adukia,SportsCafe Editor

10

Move aside quicks, there is a new sheriff in town. Nathan Lyon, at the Adelaide Oval on Thursday, made it an all-spin top-two for Australia in Tests in style by scalping two wickets in his first over and taking his tally to 564, just days after being dropped in for the encounter at the Gabba.

Nathan Lyon overtook Glenn McGrath in the Test wicket-taking charts with a jaffa to make Ben Duckett his 564th dismissal. in Adelaide on Thursday

Australia seized control of the third Ashes Test in the first session of Day 2 after some awry shot selection had left them unders on the opening day. Mitch Starc capitalized on a second new-ball with a boundary barrage to help Australia improve their first innings score to 371, moments before taking the new ball in hand. Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett began well, stitiching together an opening stand of 37 with the latter particularly looking in good nick, but Pat Cummins produced to get rid of Crawley for another single-digit score. Nevertheless, the ball remained in England's court with the deck looking increasingly good for strokemaking, and the rival skipper sought to change that by bringing on Nathan Lyon as early as the 10th over on a venue where he used to work as the groundsman in his youth. The offie was stuck on 562 wickets since July, having bowled just two overs since and dropped twice. The stuff of legends followed.

Lyon began against Duckett, who snuck a single first ball to hand Ollie Pope the strike. Lyon went full and Pope promptly drove him for no result, and the offie responded with a similar delivery just slightly wider. However, this time Pope inexplicably decided to turn the ball towards the leg side with his head falling all over the place. Unsusprisingly, the red cherry struck the inside half of his willow and popped straight to short midwicket for the simplest of takes, bringing Joeo Root to the crease. The former skipper wisely got off strike first ball, following which Loyn went full again to Duckett and was promptly defended. Like the tactical genius he is, Lyon capped off the over by finally dropping his length, getting the Kookaburra to dip from around the wicket while angling in towards the leg stump. Duckett was thus drawn forward into an expansive defence, and could only watch in horror as the red cherry pitched and turned prodigously to beat his outside edge and smash into the poles, thus sending Lyon past Glenn McGrath's tally of 563 Test wickets and leaving him only behind Shane Warne with 708 amongst the Aussies. 

Incredibly, McGrath himself was present in the commentary box, and the cameras immediately panned to him. Like his bowling in his yout, the quick did not miss a heartbeat and mimiced throwing his hands up in frustration, before grabbing a chair next to him and pretending to smash it into the furniture around out of dismay. Thankfully, 'Pidge' did it all with a smile and laugh, thoroughly amusing Twitterati.

Lol!

What a bowl!

Pure gold!

haha!

Classic reaction!

Lol!

History!

Most Test wicket

Hilarious!

Lyon !!!

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