Gold Coast: Australia spinner Nathan Lyon on Thursday asserted that the inclusion of an under-fire Tim Paine in the playing XI for the Ashes series will not be a distraction for the hosts.
Lyon's comments come after former skipper Ricky Ponting said that Paine's inclusion in the team would "inevitably" be a distraction and the drama was "not going to go away".
Paine stepped down as Australia's Test skipper last week after it emerged that he had sent unsolicited explicit image of himself along with a string of lewd messages to a female co-worker in 2017, months before he was made captain.
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"I don't see it as a distraction at all. At the end of the day, we are professional athletes, we know what we've got to do and how we've got to go about it," Lyon told reporters.
The 34-year-old off-spinner backed Paine, adding that the stumper was the "best keeper in the world".
"The selectors always said they were going to pick the best available XI and in my eyes Tim Paine is the best keeper in the world. I know I want him. This is very selfish from a bowler's point of view, I want the best gloveman behind the stumps. In my eyes that's Tim Paine.
"Everyone will say 'look at his movement around catching the ball', etcetera, but I go off the sound of the gloves when he actually catches the ball," Lyon said.
"If you look at the best keepers in the world and you actually listen to the sound of the ball as it goes into the gloves, I think you can tell that someone's a decent keeper. It's music to my ears."