Good day: Nathan Lyon picked up four wickets on day two of the final Test. Photo: Getty Images
Carted around at Chennai and then dumped, Nathan Lyon's immediate future as Australia's No. 1 spin bowler was up in the air.
He had technical issues and was down on confidence, said head coach Mickey Arthur, as Australia opted for the half-baked duo of Xavier Doherty and Glenn Maxwell and cast Lyon out.
The 25-year-old from South Australia via Young and Canberra did not agree and he made another statement at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium on Saturday.
Lyon is not the world's finest exponent of off-spin, far from it, but what he reinforced after lunch on day two of the fourth Test was that he is the best Australia has.
A double strike in the space of three overs was not, in isolation, an overwhelming blow to India's prospects of completing a 4-0 series rout in the capital but it did at least provide a snippet of brightness on a day that at that point was careering out of control for the visitors.
At tea India was 2-135, 127 in arrears of Australia's first innings total, but if not for the impact of Lyon the host would still have been coasting.
Shane Watson's new-ball attack - Mitchell Johnson, James Pattinson and Peter Siddle - had been unable to put a stop to Indian openers Murali Vijay (54 not out) and Cheteshwar Pujara (52), who passed 100 in unison in a tick over two hours and 24 overs. When Pattinson sent down an attempted bouncer that went for four byes after lunch it was beginning to get ugly.
Lyon's breakthroughs, shortly after his introduction in the 20th over, provided desperately needed relief. There was an expectation that Australia's quicks stood to be their trump cards on a breaking up surface guilty of uneven bounce.
But it was Lyon who looked the most dangerous, just as India's Ravi Ashwin had when he completed his fourth five-wicket haul of the series - giving him 27 for the campaign - earlier on Saturday.
First, Lyon beat Pujara, who had sailed along despite an injured index finger that required treatment, bowling him with a length ball that held its line.
Then, two overs later he had the measure of the new man at the crease, Virat Kohli (1). This time the ball turned, thudding into the India No. 3's pads, and gaining the approval of umpire Richard Kettleborough.
The spiky Kohli was given a decent send-off for his trouble.
Kettleborough was not as convinced soon after when Lyon appealed wildly, twice in an over, to have Sachin Tendulkar sent packing on one.
Replays suggested he should have been out on the first occasion.
Bowling around the wicket, Lyon pitched the ball on middle and leg and it hit Tendulkar on middle. Whether height was the Little Master's savour was highly doubtable.
Lyon should have had the scalp of Test cricket's greatest run-scorer for a second time in the series, and a third time in his still brief career.
He has dismissed Pujara and Kohli twice each in the series, taking seven of his eight wickets in the top order. After being taken apart by MS Dhoni in the first Test in Chennai, he at least looked to have his mojo back on Saturday.
As Michael Clarke sat in business class, en route to Singapore and then Sydney, Watson was given a crash course in just how tough the Australian captain's job is.
The country's latest Test leader would have suspected life was not going to be easy calling the shots on a tour of the subcontinent that has gone from bad to worse.
Australia's first innings was wrapped up at 262 mid-morning.
Siddle's 51, the first 50 of his Test career, and 30 from Pattinson, allowed the visitors to recover from 7-136 to post a respectable total.
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