Speculation is swirling around Stokes' return after footage emerged of the star all-rounder batting and bowling in the nets despite spending months out of the game.

The 30-year-old, who tormented the Australians in a herculean effort at Headingley during the 2019 series, has not played since July because of a finger injury and mental health reasons.

Stokes was left out of the England squad - one many believe is yearning for more batting talent - for the upcoming series which begins in Brisbane on December 8.

But Lyon expects Stokes to answer England's call leading into the first Test - and what's more, the Australian off-spinner wants him to.

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"I'm expecting him to come. I'm expecting Stokes to be out here, and to be honest, I hope he is," Lyon said.

"You want to play against the best players in the world, Stokesy is the best all-rounder in the world. He's an x-factor, he's a game-changer, and you want to play against these players. I'm expecting Stokesy to come."

The England batting line-up is led by a world class player in captain Joe Root but Lyon said the suggestion the rest of the side is simply shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic was "a bit harsh".

"It's the exact squad I actually thought would be coming out there. They've got some very talented batters early in their Test careers so I'm not taking any of these guys lightly," Lyon said.

"You look at Ollie Pope's last red ball game, it was a pretty big double-hundred. It's going to be a different challenge for these guys coming out to Australia and we want that as Australian cricketers, we want to challenge these guys for long periods of time. It's exciting. I'm looking forward to it."

Because Lyon, who is backing Australian batsman David Warner to "have a pretty big World Cup and a massive Ashes for us" despite recent struggles, says he has "a couple of mystery balls" in store for the English batters when they arrive at the Gabba for the opening Test of the series.

The 33-year-old suffered a concussion scare earlier this week after he "headbutted the ground" in a fielding mishap which drew blood and forced him to miss two days of NSW's intra-squad match.

But the former ACT Comets skipper, who is one scalp away from claiming the 400th wicket of his Test career, is on track to play next week's Sheffield Shield clash with Victoria at Sydney's Drummoyne Oval.

Lyon was overlooked for this year's limited-overs tours of the West Indies and Bangladesh, while he is watching the Twenty20 World Cup from afar. It means his last game came in a Shield final loss in April.

But the veteran says he has put the time to good use, and he has backed the likes of Sean Abbott and Michael Neser to fill a void left by James Pattinson's shock retirement in the fast bowling stocks.

"A couple of mystery balls, always got a couple of mystery balls working," Lyon said.

"That's been the beauty about this pre-season. This has been my first proper pre-season where I've been able to do a lot of fitness work and a lot of skills work.

"I've been doing a lot of work, different variations, and I've already started looking at England batters already.

"That's exciting, but in saying that, I'm pumped to be playing Shield cricket next week and looking forward to getting back out there and getting the competitive juices flowing."

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