Nick Tsagaris - Nathan Lyon the quiet key to Australia's undermanned Test win

Nick Tsagaris - Nathan Lyon's off spin was Australia's quiet weapon in the first Test against New Zealand

Of all the misfortunes a Test match can visit upon a team, losing a bowler to injury is among the most dreaded. Especially early, and especially when they're one of four.

The sight of that bowler leaving the field means that a win is out the window, a draw becomes the best case, and some long days of losing toil are more likely. It is a sentence handed down to innocent souls by a bent and capricious judge.

When both teams suffered this fate in the Perth Test, New Zealand looked the luckier.

They had conceded a big score and lost two wickets, but at least they had a proper seaming all-rounder to help fill in for Lockie Ferguson, and at least he had helped bowl until near tea on the first day.

Josh Hazlewood on the other hand was injured four overs in, leaving a total of two seam-bowling options unless some extremely part-time dross was summoned from the top order.

Add to that, you have Perth's climate where the nearby desert breathes down the back of your neck and each of the four days touched 40 degrees Celsius — conditions that make you want to double your bowler numbers, not cut them by a quarter.

Australia's eventual win was so emphatic that retrospect will make it look inevitable, but it was remarkable how three bowlers managed to go through New Zealand twice in 120 overs.

Mitchell Starc's knack for incision was the obvious defining factor, as his left-arm lightning coursed through batsmen in both innings, especially once night had fallen to accentuate its brightness.

But Nathan Lyon's off-breaks were also key, if a little less flashy in appearance.

On the second evening, when New Zealand batsmen first took guard and Starc knocked off four of them, Ross Taylor used Lyon as his release. In between being worked over by bouncers, Taylor blatted Lyon through cover with that bottom-handed swat that makes him look so confident.

When they resumed the tussle the next day, Taylor was a different batsman and Lyon a different bowler. The pitch had started to crack and offer more grip. Lyon shredded

his first ball back through the gate, then slid one on with the arm that beat Taylor's outside edge.

Taylor was perplexed, playing fresh-air shots and nearly running himself out to get off strike. After three overs of discomfort, Lyon bowled straight, Taylor played for spin and edged to slip for 80. New Zealand's best hope for the innings had been done in.

It mattered. Because whatever the deficit, New Zealand could always see a promised land: get through Starc and Pat Cummins when fresh, force them back too often, wear them down and reap the benefits of part-timers.

Lyon dropped a whirring delivery right into a patch of rough, making it explode at Williamson with a sharp inward angle. The most agile of batsmen with the finest touch could only glove to short leg.

On Lyon went through the afternoon, aside from a couple of overs of part-time tandem. He bounced and spun a ball past the left-handed Tom Latham before shooting one through to end a stubborn innings leg before wicket. He drew a bat-pad catch from Henry Nicholls, who had started brightly with 21.

Lyon's control allowed Cummins and Starc to ration their efforts to a couple of telling spells, then to reunite in the last hour for one final evening blitz. It all but finished the job, and Lyon only needed three balls for the match-sealing wicket.

The performance was important for Lyon's confidence. When he's feeling good, his bowling lifts dramatically, but sometimes bad luck has kicked a hole in him.

Bowling Australia to a win at Edgbaston was huge, but his Ashes thereafter had some barren days and the fumbling climax at Headingley. He suffered a litany of dropped catches against Pakistan in Adelaide, although he picked up wickets in the second dig.

Modesty has long defined Lyon's career: the shaved head, the average above 30, the reflexive self-deprecation. Asked on TV for his pre-match ritual, he answered: "Staying up all night worrying about the game." There's a ring of truth to it.

But whatever the detail match to match, one mounting number is increasingly telling.

On leaving Perth he had taken his Test wicket tally to 376, passing Waqar Younis and levelling Malcolm Marshall. He is moving deeper into the top 20, with only five spinners yet ahead of him.

A good year or so could see him past Harbhajan Singh's 417 and Rangana Herath's 434. He would trail only the trinity, Test cricket's most prolific of all bowlers: Anil Kumble, Shane Warne, and Muttiah Muralitharan.

Lyon lacks their presence on the pitch, and would never claim it. His wickets cost more and take longer and he has more days when teams can get on top of him.

But he is a bowler who has grown so much in the public eye, and is growing still. He has been brilliant often enough to claim it as his standard. By the end of the Perth Test he was showing a bit of his own kind of swagger. He deserved every bit of it.

By: abc.net.au