Once again nathan lyon does very well when conditions didn't really favour spin.

Watching him throughout his career it has baffled me that he has always held his own in the first innings - more than most spinners I have seen - only to struggle to dominate in the second innings.
For similar reasons he struggled in pune yet has done well here.

Steven o'keefe is a very different bowler. He keeps it tight and ties down an end when conditions don't favour spinners and blows teams away when the pitch is dry and old.

If he was a leggie I could better analyze his game. As it stands its puzzling to me why he punches above his weight in the first innings yet rarely dominates in the second

Bounce.

As opposed to spin?

Bounce allows the ball to be surprising brought up to the gloves and can give more options for dismissals. 

I'm an off spinner so I'll answer this one -

Lyon is actually quite a tall guy, over 6ft which is unusual for a spinner. This means the ball already gets released from a high trajectory. He gets a lot of bounce, which helps him on hard wickets. If you watch Lyon on ball tracker, some of his good length deliveries bounce well over the stumps.

He's not looking to get batsmen out bowled or LBW (except round the wicket), but rather to get one to spin and bounce - up into the shoulder of the bat or the batsman's ribcage where he will prod it to bat pad or the slip cordon. Or if the batsman charges down, to get him out stumped.

Unlike Ashwin, Lyon was brought up to bowl in the "Australian" way - slow it down and toss it up. Australian pitches are usually hard and fast, and don't spin sideways. If you want to get turn up have to bowl slower and with more loop.

As Shane Warne found out whenever he went to India, if you try to bowl slower and more loopy on slow pitches, the batsman has time to adjust. With Lyon's bounce it's even worse because it just sits up to be hit.

In India you have to bowl faster and flatter and target the stumps. Lyon hadn't worked out how to do it before this series but he seems to have worked it out now.

O'Keefe is a very different bowler - he bowls with a round arm action, targets the stumps and has quite a flat trajectory. I wasn't surprised to see him do well in India because his bowling suits the pitches. I'm not sure how he learned to bowl that way - my guess is that the pitches in Sydney grade cricket spin a bit more, so you can bowl this way with success.

Informative post.

Actually Nathan Lion is a great spinner after Shane Warne I think. He can produce result anytime. Even in Test Match at Asia vs India he proved himself.

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