The 10-year first that proves Nathan Lyon is getting better with age as he closes in on 500 Test wickets

By a certain point, it seems to require a minor miracle to get that number on the scales to go down, especially by any sizeable margin. To do so there is rarely a quick fix. Getting back to a target weight can require an almost obsessional attitude. You need to do all the little things right.

Nathan Lyon has done it.

And no, this isn’t about any supposed paunch on the Australian off-spinner, although Lyon’s fitness, honed by his longtime trainer in the former NSW rugby player Tom Carter, is part of the tale.

Lyon, barring a mishap, will next week play his 100th consecutive Test when he lines up at Lord’s. He is a fair chance to match the feat of Glenn McGrath by taking his 500th Test scalp at the home of cricket, given Lyon will enter the second Ashes Test on 495.

Lyon would become the eighth man to the 500 milestone, and just the sixth to play 100 straight. The five in front of him are Allan Border, Alastair Cook, Mark Waugh, Sunil Gavaskar and Brendon McCullum, meaning Lyon will be the first frontline bowler to the milestone. And no one else has even got close.

Garfield Sobers played 85 straight as an all-rounder, while Kapil Dev achieved separate streaks off 66 and 65 straight Tests and Indian spinner Anil Kumble had a stretch of 60.

Lyon stands well apart in terms of durability.

And he will arrive in London for what should be a celebration of his incredible career to date looking as lean as he has in more than a decade.

Not literally.

But something remarkable happened at Edgbaston on Monday. In taking 4-80 in England’s second innings – making it eight wickets for the match and 13 for the tour already – Lyon’s Test bowling average slipped under 31.

Only just. To nine decimal places it is: 30.997979798. Had he conceded just one more run it would have been an even 31. But if Bradman’s batting average is said to have finished under 100, then Lyon’s bowling average is less than 31.

Why is this figure so important? It’s not really. It’s arbitrary. But it’s also the first time Lyon has ended a Test with an average under 31 since the Boxing Day Test of 2012 against Sri Lanka.

That was Lyon’s 18th Test. This is his 121st.

He’s like a 70-year-old being able to fit into the same jeans he wore in his 20s.

Lyon’s highest post-Test bowling average was 38.25 after his fourth Test in South Africa in late 2011. But it was also as high as 35.80 after his 35th Test against Pakistan in late 2014, and ballooned back to 34.07 after his 63rd Test, the Sydney Test against Pakistan of early 2017.

It was around that stage that Lyon’s career was at the crossroads. Steve O’Keefe was coming for his spot, and perhaps only an injury to the left-armer a few weeks earlier had spared Lyon from the axe.

Much like it is hard to strip weight in middle age, it is hard to trim your bowing average substantially the more Test cricket you play. That’s just how averages work. There are no wild fluctuations once you’ve played dozens and dozens of matches. A couple of five-fers aren’t magic diet pills.

Whittling down your average takes years of steady performances. Since the start of Australia’s tour of India in early 2017, Lyon averages 28.37.

Even then he started last summer with an average above 32. But since being outbowled by Todd Murphy at Nagpur in February, Lyon has been irrepressible.

England flagged its intention to go after Lyon ahead of this series. And the hosts did attack him on day one. But Lyon was prepared. He’d employed reserves Matt Renshaw and Josh Inglis to attack him in the nets in the lead-up to the Test. Lyon backed his combination of accuracy and guile to ultimately prevail, even if he copped some stick.

Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow had been England’s top scorers in the first innings but Lyon got them both on Monday; Root beaten as he danced down the wicket and Bairstow trapped after missing a reverse sweep. That Alex Carey didn’t botch any of his stumping attempts – in contrast to his England counterpart – is another matter that won’t paint Bairstow in a great light.

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Intermittently, the bozos in the Hollies Stand would taunt Lyon by chanting “you’re just a s*** Moeen Ali.” Of course it was just a joke.

“I absolutely love the crowd to be honest with you,” Lyon said post-play.

But by innings’ end, Lyon had taken 17 wickets in his last two Tests at the venue. The joke was on them.