Australia spinner Nathan Lyon managed to swerve a strange question about using urine to toughen up fingers after day four of the first Ashes Test.
Lyon faced the media on Monday evening after taking figures of 4-80 to help set up what promises to be a grandstand finish at Edgbaston once the rain clears off on Tuesday. And while he was asked plenty of questions about his own bowling and the exciting state of the game, which will see Australia resume on 107-3 needing a further 174 runs to win, he also fielded an unusual query.
England off-spinner Moeen Ali has been hampered by a blistered index finger, which has caused him enormous discomfort while bowling during the match. As a fellow spinner, Lyon was asked whether he had any techniques to avoid just problems, with the reporter making reference to Graeme Swann, who was known to soak his finger in his own urine.
Lyon looked baffled by the question, asking if the journalist was referring to the use of alcohol. He then joked: “Yeah, I do. But I’m not going to… I don’t have to tell you what I do in my hotel room, so we’ll leave it at that.”
His response prompted laughter in the press conference, but Swann’s seemingly bizarre method is not just urban legend. Speaking back in 1999 when he was a 20-year-old up-and-coming off-spinner at Northants, Swann explained: "There have been a few different methods for toughening your spinning finger and I've tried them all. Much is made of it.
"There's been surgical spirit and a herbal remedy called Friars Balsam… and then there's urine in a bucket. I dip my hand in that. I find it works best."
He then added that his team-mates had been forced to get used to the sight of him standing in the corner of the dressing room with his index and middle finger in a bucket of urine.
“Yes I do wash my hands before I go out to bowl,” he added. “Or if the lunch and tea intervals are approaching. And no, I don't lick my fingers between deliveries."
Away from strange tales of urine use, Lyon did offer some sympathetic words to Moeen, who was called up as a last-minute replacement for the injured Jack Leach and therefore was not ready to bowl lots of overs.
“It’s massive to be honest with you, I actually sitting here have a lot of sympathy for Moeen,” he said of the strain his opponent is feeling. “Not coming off any red-ball cricket for two years and thrown into bowling a lot of overs.
“The best way I can probably sum it up, and it will probably sound weird, is a singer losing their vocals but expecting to go out and put a concert on.
“It is extremely tough to grip the ball as finger spinners, especially as offies, we put our fingers on the seam and try to spin up the back of the ball. That’s where we get spin, drop and drift. So [I’ve] a lot of sympathy for him, I’ve been there before, it is quite painful.”
