chooka_nick
International 12th Man
'I've been working hard for this.'
'Who in the world is Timothy Lyon?' I hear the casual cricket follower cry out, 'and why is he second eleven vice-captain?'. Timothy admits that both are reasonable questions, and has no problem labelling himself as a bit of a 'cricketing nobody'. A rookie player drafted onto Yorkshire's roster last year, Lyon has a reputation as a style-concious number three, a Ricky Ponting with lower self-esteem. Stories of Tim as a kid tell of an elegant, attacking batsman who was prone to massive form slumps: something which even the man himself admits is quite true.
'I played a lot of younger cricket as a child, and I always used to dominate. But when I got up to the upper grades I would always get myself bogged down in a form slump; as soon as something went wrongs, I'd get caught in a negative cycle.'
'But that's a side of me I've been working on non-stop over the past few years. I'm really pushing myself to be the best batsman I can be, whilst also working on my mentality.' Lyons shrugs his shoulders and looks me in the eye. 'If a few bad games in a row ruins my entire season, I wont last very long at the top, will I?'
When asked who helped his approach, Lyons admits he had to figure it out himself, and also credits his mate (and Yorkshire second eleven captain) Greg Belle for challenging him to improve all the time.
'I always get a lot of inspiration from Graeme Hick. He's played so many matches over his career, and he's hit well over one-hundred centuries. I just remind myself that he MUST have had a few bad games somewhere, and yet he's still going strong at forty years of age. Greg helps a lot as well. He's been my captain for most of my junior career, and my mate for a lot longer, so he knows how to push me. I sort of expected to start out at number three this year, because Greg knows I can do it, but he told me to earn it instead, and that I'd be battling with some of the more experienced guys to get there.'
The joke, however, is on Tim: the man who he's battling with for the number three spot is rookie keeper Patel, who's played less games than Lyon has. When I point this out to Timothy he just laughs and smiles. 'That would be Greg pushing me. A good bat, he (Patel) is. He's there because he's Mister Versitile and can bat in any situation. Whilst Greg's working out the rest of the batting order there's no problem with him batting there, and he may even make that spot his own!'
But despite Tim's modesty there is a certain foreboding to him snatching the number three spot from right under Patel's nose. All this work on his mentality and technique has paid off dividends; or, more specifically, a match-turning century against Free State. In at 3/101, he batted right through to the end score of 346, scoring a chanceless 117 in the process.
'That's what I've been working on. I could either have folded then and we wouldn't have made three-hundred, or I could have knuckled down and fought for my runs. I decided to do the latter.'
Mashonaland had better look out, because there's a young batsman on his way who will do whatever it takes to get that elusive number three spot. And a captain who knows how to use him.
Mashonaland vs Yorkshire - Monday Night
Yorkshire Team: P Marsden, B Foster, N Patel(WK), T Lyon(VC), A Gonsalves, G Belle(C), W Kitson, K Davies, Z Saeed, K Sami, Y Arafat.
'Who in the world is Timothy Lyon?' I hear the casual cricket follower cry out, 'and why is he second eleven vice-captain?'. Timothy admits that both are reasonable questions, and has no problem labelling himself as a bit of a 'cricketing nobody'. A rookie player drafted onto Yorkshire's roster last year, Lyon has a reputation as a style-concious number three, a Ricky Ponting with lower self-esteem. Stories of Tim as a kid tell of an elegant, attacking batsman who was prone to massive form slumps: something which even the man himself admits is quite true.
'I played a lot of younger cricket as a child, and I always used to dominate. But when I got up to the upper grades I would always get myself bogged down in a form slump; as soon as something went wrongs, I'd get caught in a negative cycle.'
'But that's a side of me I've been working on non-stop over the past few years. I'm really pushing myself to be the best batsman I can be, whilst also working on my mentality.' Lyons shrugs his shoulders and looks me in the eye. 'If a few bad games in a row ruins my entire season, I wont last very long at the top, will I?'
When asked who helped his approach, Lyons admits he had to figure it out himself, and also credits his mate (and Yorkshire second eleven captain) Greg Belle for challenging him to improve all the time.
'I always get a lot of inspiration from Graeme Hick. He's played so many matches over his career, and he's hit well over one-hundred centuries. I just remind myself that he MUST have had a few bad games somewhere, and yet he's still going strong at forty years of age. Greg helps a lot as well. He's been my captain for most of my junior career, and my mate for a lot longer, so he knows how to push me. I sort of expected to start out at number three this year, because Greg knows I can do it, but he told me to earn it instead, and that I'd be battling with some of the more experienced guys to get there.'
The joke, however, is on Tim: the man who he's battling with for the number three spot is rookie keeper Patel, who's played less games than Lyon has. When I point this out to Timothy he just laughs and smiles. 'That would be Greg pushing me. A good bat, he (Patel) is. He's there because he's Mister Versitile and can bat in any situation. Whilst Greg's working out the rest of the batting order there's no problem with him batting there, and he may even make that spot his own!'
But despite Tim's modesty there is a certain foreboding to him snatching the number three spot from right under Patel's nose. All this work on his mentality and technique has paid off dividends; or, more specifically, a match-turning century against Free State. In at 3/101, he batted right through to the end score of 346, scoring a chanceless 117 in the process.
'That's what I've been working on. I could either have folded then and we wouldn't have made three-hundred, or I could have knuckled down and fought for my runs. I decided to do the latter.'
Mashonaland had better look out, because there's a young batsman on his way who will do whatever it takes to get that elusive number three spot. And a captain who knows how to use him.
Mashonaland vs Yorkshire - Monday Night
Yorkshire Team: P Marsden, B Foster, N Patel(WK), T Lyon(VC), A Gonsalves, G Belle(C), W Kitson, K Davies, Z Saeed, K Sami, Y Arafat.
Keep it up, bud!
As if you shove praise on me. I wouldn't have any idea what was going on if you weren't doing such a good job! Yorkshire FTW 
