Lyon has taken mantle from Ashwin as best off-spinner: Brad Hogg

Brad Hogg (IANS)

New Delhi, April 11:  Former Australia cricketer Brad Hogg believes Nathan Lyon has improved a lot in the last few years and thats why he is a better off-spinner than Ravichandran Ashwin in Test cricket in contemporary times.

"I feel Lyon has taken the mantle from Ashwin over the last year just as the best off-spinner, but I love the way both continue to improve their games and not be complacent where they are at," Hogg said while replying to a fan on Twitter who asked him to rate who is a better off-spinner between Ashwin and Lyon in Test cricket.

Ashwin has so far picked 365 wickets from 71 Tests while Lyon has 390 wickets to his name from 96 Tests.

However, it seems Hogg drew his conclusion from the fact that Ashwin hasn't been able to perform that well in overseas conditions as compared to Lyon.

When it comes to limited-overs cricket, Ashwin has scalped 150 and 52 wickets respectively in 111 ODIs and 46 T20Is respectively. Lyon, on the other hand, has played just 29 ODIs and 2 T20Is in which he has been able to pick 29 and 1 wicket respectively.