Australian superstar Nathan Lyon has emerged as the man at the centre of Friday’s Adelaide Oval blackout.

Three minutes of play between Australia and India was lost on the opening day in Adelaide when the lights switched off mid-over.

And while the towers quickly flicked back into action and the moments were pulled back with an extra few minutes at the end of play, Australia’s greatest-ever finger spinner has been revealed as the culprit.

With Australia approaching the close of play just one wicket down having bundled the tourists out for 180 thanks to Mitchell Starc, Lyon decided he needed a quick net session with the bat in hand in case he was needed as a nightwatchman.

Lyon has been the traditional nightwatchman during his 130 Test matches, however, oddly lost the honour in Perth when skipper Pat Cummins gave himself the duties.

Ground officials confirmed on Saturday a report from Brad Haddin that the main stadium light towers were inadvertently switched off while they were trying to turn the net lights on for Lyon.

“I was speaking to the ground staff and it was all about Nathan Lyon,’’ Haddin said on The Willow Talk podcast.

“Nathan Lyon went out the back for a hit and they went to turn the lights on and whatever happened, they turned the wrong set off and the lights went off and Nathan Lyon said, ‘I’ve got to fix this so I can go out and bat in the nets’.

“They politely said to Nathan, the lights are off on the ground, we’re not so worried about your hit at the moment. So that’s come hot off the press from the curators.”

Despite the innocent incident, South Australian MP Tom Koutsantonis took to X on Friday night to get ahead of the situation and assure people it was not a power grid failure.

“I can confirm there was no lack of power supply or availability in South Australia. Whatever caused the light towers at Adelaide Oval to turn off was not related to a lack of power supply from the Grid,” he wrote.