Breaking stereotypes: The Nathan Ellis way

One man who, six months ago, did not have a professional contract in any format of the game. One man who, six months ago, had contemplated moving back to Sydney from Hobart, before being invited over by Adam Griffith in the very last minute to join Tasmania’s pre-season. One man who, up until taking the ball to bowl the last over, had taken just 7 wickets in 10 matches and had been smashed for 23 runs off his previous over, an over that all but handed the initiative back to the chasing side. But everything can change in a moment, the world will turn their head around to take notice of a celebrating assassin and all Nathan Ellis needed was that one over to turn his future around. It all happens in a fairytale, doesn't it? 

At the first glance of Nathan Ellis, no way would you think that he is good enough to play cricket at the highest level, or at least be your ‘go-to’ bowler. He’s not tall and lanky, meaning he does not generate a great deal of bounce, he does not really move the ball in the air and most importantly, his deliveries seldom cross the 138 kph mark on the speed guns. On top of all this, he is not a witty customer who bamboozles batsmen with his variations either. 

Because unlike the age-old saying, first impressions aren’t a thing in cricket. Maybe in an interview, maybe on Tinder, but not on a cricket field. If it were, I wouldn’t be writing this article. In fact, first impressions can be deceptive and Nathan Ellis’ rise in BBL 09 is a testament to the same.

If Ellis has shown one thing throughout the course of this BBL season, though, it’s that he is here to break stereotypes. For, he does not, in any way, fit the attributes that we are so accustomed to seeing in an Australian bowler - Tall, quick, aggressive, intimidating and always on the batsmen’s ears.

There is one attribute, however, that makes him stand apart from the rest of the young men in the country, if not the rest of the world - the ability, the self-confidence to back himself to execute what he’s good at, over and over again, irrespective of what the end result is. Being able to execute a reverse-swinging yorker at the death is one thing, but backing yourself to do the same after being taken to the cleaners by the batsman is a completely different ball-game altogether; it is what separates the best from the rest.

In the words of Ellis himself, "The best bowlers are the ones that get hit for a four or a six, or bowl a bad over, and come back as if nothing has happened.” And it is this forget-everything-that-happened-in-the-last-ball approach that has seen the 25-year-old firmly establish himself as the best death bowler in the ongoing Big Bash League.

Ellis was not destined for this, though. He, most certainly, would have not played all 15 matches in the Hurricanes’ campaign had it not been for Riley Meredith’s tournament-ending injury. As admitted by his coach Griffith, "We thought we'd have a few other cattle on the park throughout the tournament." But sport, especially cricket, is funny and over the course of the past 18 months, it’s injuries that have engendered the best stories, from Mayank Agarwal to Marnus Labuschagne to Haris Rauf to Zak Crawley; destiny works in weird, quirky ways.

But the Nathan Ellis we’re seeing today is not a product of destiny, rather a concoction of peerless hard work and immovable self-belief. The Hurricanes’ campaign might have ended, but Ellis’ journey has just begun. Could he be an outside pick for the WT20, especially given that Australia are in dire need of death-over specialists? You never know. He has, thus far, taken the right steps, asked the right questions and most certainly put his name in the hat. One thing is certain, though: he most definitely won’t be needing to remove furniture, install air-conditioners or labour on construction sites any time in the near future.