SYDNEY: Australia’s premier off-spinner Nathan Lyon said on Monday he plans to call on all-time leading wicket-taker Muttiah Muralitharan for more bowling advice during his team’s tour to Sri Lanka in July.

Lyon is just five wickets away from becoming the first Australian off-spinner to claim 200 Test victims and is keen to gather further insights from the Sri Lankan great, who worked briefly with him as a consultant bowling coach in 2014.

He said a renewal of that relationship would deliver benefits when bowling in the Sri Lanka series.

“(Mentor) John Davison and myself were recently talking about a few comments that he (Murali) said about how you should be bowling over on the sub-continent,” Lyon said.

“So I’m looking forward to putting those into play and hopefully it will be good to catch up with Murali again over there. If we can get him down to a training session that would be fantastic.”

Lyon said he still had much to learn and while he differs from Muralitharan in finger-spinning he was keen to take any advice from the 44-year-old ahead of Tests against spin specialists Sri Lanka and India (away) as well as Pakistan (home) over the next 12 months.

“It’s not so much technical, I’ve got a little bit different action to Murali,” Lyon said.

“It’s more mindset, and attacking and defending in sub-continental conditions.

“Just understanding the game, and somebody of his quality and what he was able to do in sub-continent conditions was pretty spectacular so if I can learn off him by just listening to him and talking to him then I’m heading in the right direction.”

Muralitharan is the only bowler to claim 800 Test wickets. He also claimed more than 500 one-day scalps.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2016