Nathan Lyon says ‘he thought the majority of England hates me’ before his standing ovation at Lord’s… but the Australian off-spinner still aims an Ashes swipe

Australian off-spinner Nathan Lyon has fired an early salvo ahead of the 2025-26 Ashes by claiming his team would have beaten England 4-0 last summer had he not torn a calf muscle during the second Test at Lord’s.

The Aussies won that game to move 2-0 up, before Ben Stokes’s Bazballers fought back in Lyon’s absence to level the series at 2-2. 

Had rain not ruined the last two days of the fourth Test in Manchester, England might even have regained the urn.

But Lyon, who is back in England this summer playing for Lancashire, said: ‘I do believe if I was here it would have been 4-0 to Australia.’

Before his series was over, however, he hobbled out to bat, earning an ovation from the Lord’s crowd that reduced his wife, Emma, and her parents to tears.

Lyon played through the pain barrier and earned an ovation from the Lord’s crowd last year

‘I probably didn’t understand the level of respect that was shown there and then,’ he told the BBC. ‘That’s something that I’m grateful to be able to look back on. I always thought the majority of England hates me.’

He also said England did not have a monopoly on the Bazball style of cricket that emerged after Stokes took over the captaincy in 2022.

‘I just feel like we’ve been playing entertaining cricket for a number of years now,’ said Lyon. ‘We just don’t need to call it a name to justify it. I’ve seen David Warner score centuries in a session well and truly before Bazball was invented.

‘It’s up to them to keep doing it now. They’ve literally got to go at six runs an over otherwise they’re not playing Bazball. If you’re going to talk about it, you’ve got to do it.’

Worcestershire’s players will wear the No 33 on their shirts for the rest of the season as a tribute to their former team-mate Josh Baker, who died tragically last week at the age of 20.

The club’s chief executive, Ashley Giles, said: ‘Wearing Josh’s number on their shirts is a way for the team, and all involved with Worcestershire cricket, to pay tribute to his memory and keep his spirit alive on the field.’