Nathan Lyon’s celestial six a joyous celebration of Australia’s lower order | Geoff Lemon

England’s specialist batters have struggled throughout while Australia’s bowlers have increased the pain in the form of runs

There was a moment in the trajectory where the impossible announced that it was, in fact, possible. Nathan Lyon had just played a pull shot, which was nothing unusual. His only shots in Test cricket are the pull shot and the sweep shot, which for Lyon is the pull shot he plays while kneeling down. He knows fast bowlers will bowl bouncers at him and he has devised one method of deflecting them.

So it is normal to see Lyon lean back and heave across the line. It is not unprecedented for him to hit one of those shots for six, which before this match he had done nine times in 2,335 balls faced. It was unprecedented for him to hit more than one of those in an innings, a stat bettered on the second day in Hobart by clearing the fence three times. The most astonishing thing was the timing on the second six, a ball that came so cleanly out of the middle of the bat, at such a perfect point of the swing, that it soared.