Unseen footage shows Nathan Lyon in tears inside the Aussie dressing room during the explosive 2023 Ashes series.
The footage of the distressed cricketer is one of several behind the scenes moments captured in the new series of Prime Video’s The Test docu-series.
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The finger-spinner is seen breaking down in tears during Australia’s five-Test battle with the Old Enemy last year where the relationship between the two teams reached their bitterest level in recent memory.
The scenes of Australian players being verbally attacked by the feral members of Lord’s prestigious Long Room were enough to shock both countries.
It came as Aussie captain Pat Cummins’ side became public enemy No. 1 in the UK following Alex Carey’s controversial stumping of England’s Jonny Bairstow.
However, there was an even more traumatic moment for Lyon during the fateful Second Test when he suffered a series-ending calf muscle injury.
The 36-year-old had captured nine wickets in three innings before the injury as Australia took a 2-0 lead.
It has always been impossible to know what the final result of the series would have been had Lyon played the final three Tests. In the end Australia struggled without Lyon but retained the iconic Ashes urn despite the series finishing 2-2.
The sight of Lyon in tears, as captured by the Prime Video cameras, says it all about what a massive blow it was to the Aussie side.
It also shows Lyon kept his true emotions secret for almost 12 months, having always put up a brave facade when speaking publicly throughout the rest of the series.
Prime Video said in a statement this week Lyon, Cummins, Usman Khawaja and Alex Carey are among the players that will be featured in the series as well as their families.
Cummins said in a statement provided to news.com.au: “There are no greater rivals, and I know people will love taking an inside look at what was going on behind the scenes when season three launches on 24 May.
“Winning the World Test Championship, which began our UK tour, was a victory the whole squad was enormously proud of. It was and still is a huge goal of ours.
“And as always, The Ashes brings with it plenty of controversy and defining moments. I am sure people from all walks will enjoy an exclusive look at what happens on and off field during these campaigns.”
Cummins and Lyon last year continued to laugh at England’s expense as the Poms continued to cry foul long after the final ball of the series was bowled.
The former Adelaide Oval assistant curator showed no sign of the pained emotion captured by the Prime Video cameras in the heat of the moment when he renewed hostilities with England in comments made in November.
When asked about England’s aggressive tactics — described as “Bazball” as a result of the team’s Kiwi coach Brendon McCullum — Lyon didn’t miss.
“I’m 2-0 against Bazball so I am happy,” he said.
“It’s a load of shit, if you ask me. It’s a brand of cricket that the English want to keep going with. Now it’s in the dictionary which is pretty extraordinary.”
Lyon was watching from the Australian pavilion at Lord’s when the cricket world went into meltdown following Bairstow’s dismissal.
England supporters were particularly enraged by the episode and famously abused Australian players throughout the rest of the series.
Captain Ben Stokes’ team famously clung onto the dream of being “moral victors” with suggestions from coach Brendon McCullum that Australia failed to act within the so-called “spirit of cricket”.
Lyon previously addressed the infamous Lord’s Long Room incident where several MCC members have since been banned over the shameful abuse directed at Aussie players as they walked off the field.
“We all found it pretty funny,” Lyon said.
“You look in the Long Room and we all said we were more a chance of getting sued than punched. So we were pretty amazed by it. But it was funny. When the guys came back out after lunch, it was like the members got spoken to from the head master and it was all primary school kids again.
“But I’ve never seen a crowd react like that after anything.”
Aussie players are still laughing about it.
Asked by cricket comedy podcast duo The Grade Cricketer (TGC) in September about how they felt about having “lost the Ashes, morally”, the Australians were at pains to describe the impact of the moral defeat.
All-rounder Mitch Marsh spoke of his pain at the moral whitewash.
“Yeah, I think any time you lose an Ashes series 5-0, it’s always tough to take,” Marsh quipped, going on to reference English opener Zak Crawley’s remarks during the series about what a “fair” result looked like.
“Them being the greatest side to ever play Test cricket, 5-0 was probably fair.”
It’s fair to say Piers Morgan will be watching The Test with great interest to spot any potential further Australian spirit of cricket violations.
“If there’s one thing worse than Australia so brazenly abusing the spirit of cricket, it’s seeing the miscreants now chortling away about it,” Morgan wrote on Twitter.
“Stokes should play this video to his team before the next Ashes series. In fact, he should play it to them every day between now and then.”
Unfortunately the world has to wait until the Aussie summer of 2025-26 for the hostilities to resume.
– The Test Season 3, comes to Prime Video on the May 24