Melbourne [Australia], November 25 : Former Australian cricketer Tom Moody called for veteran spinner Nathan Lyon to be omitted from the second Ashes Test squad, starting from November 29 at Brisbane as a pink-ball day-night match, saying that it is "hard to get a spinner in contest" during such matches and he would rather have all-rounder Beau Webster strengthening the batting line-up.
The pink-ball Test has historically favoured the pacers. During the first Ashes Test at Perth, Lyon bowled just two overs for 10 runs and went wicketless while Mitchell Starc, Brendan Doggett and Scott Boland wreaked havoc on England on what was a bouncy, extremely fast surface at the Optus Stadium.
Heading into the Brisbane pink-ball Tests, Lyon stands just two wickets away from toppling Glenn McGrath (563 wickets) to become the second-highest wicket-taker in the longest format for Australia.
Speaking as quoted by Wide World of Sports (WWOS), Moody questioned if the time had come for selectors to make a tough call and sacrifice the loyalty between a tightly-knit playing group.
"That's half the problem - I sense that in some cases, the tail is wagging the dog and you do not want that in any high-performance environment," he said.
"A few hard decisions need to be made, and my personal view is I would not play Lyon."
"I never thought I would see the day where you do not play a specialist spinner in a Test match in Australia, but with day-night cricket it is hard to get the spinner into the contest. The second part to that is, the way England play, it is very hard to get the spinner into the game, because they do not tend to bat for long periods of time."
"Putting that together with the day-night fixture, I think Australia would be better having someone like [Beau] Webster taking Lyon's spot and lengthening the batting order," he concluded.
A powerful right-handed hitter, Webster has represented Australia in seven Tests, scoring 381 runs in 12 innings at an average of 34.63 with four fifties and has also taken eight wickets at an average of 23.25. Besides pace, he can also bowl really handy right-arm off break and in that aspect could be a like-to-like replacement for Lyon while also adding more batting power.
During last year's pink-ball Test at Adelaide against India, Lyon bowled just one over in the first innings, giving away just six runs. The pace trio of Mitchell Starc, Scott Boland and skipper Pat Cummins wreaked havoc, with Starc getting eight wickets in the match and Cummins getting seven, including a six-fer and five-fer respectively. Scott also got five wickets, including three in the final innings.
In 13 pink-ball Tests, Lyon has taken 43 wickets at an average of 25.62, with only one five-wicket haul to his name.
The squad for the second Ashes Test is yet to be declared.