Nathan Ellis, the noise-cancelling pacer: A construction worker, a door-to-door salesman, a furniture removal who almost quit cricket

Nathan Ellis’ conscientious approach and unshakeable temperament on a belter of a track on a dewy night in Guwahati proved once again why his stocks in T20 cricket across the globe have skyrocketed. On a surface where the bowlers were going for runs, struggling to handle the dew, the 28-year-old was the pick of the bowlers. Ellis picked up the wickets of Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson, home-crowd favourite Riyan Parag and Devdutt Padikkal.
He seems to be a special noise-canceller. The fall of Parag had stunned the loud Guwahati crowd for a while, and this is not the first time he has done this in India. He has played against India twice, a T20I match in Mohali last year and an ODI at Vizag a few weeks back, and got Virat Kohli on both occasions silencing the crowd. Ellis is shorter in height than most fast bowlers and has a whippy action, getting the ball to skid at good pace at the stumps.
The 28-year-old has played a handful of international cricket (4 ODIs and 5 T20Is) and has played only if the top Australian seamers are either rested or are injured. On Thursday, he again played because Kagiso Rabada was not match-ready.
“I still remember that Mohali T20I game. There was so much dew and the cherry on the cake was Virat Kohli’s wicket. My career has never been straightforward. It has always been very dramatic. I was not picked in that game. Kane Richardson went down two minutes before the toss, and I was called up,” Ellis told The Indian Express.
Punjab Kings’ Nathan Ellis bowls a delivery during the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 match between Punjab Kings and Rajasthan Royals, in Guwahati, India, Wednesday, April 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
Ellis has endured more than his share of slings and arrows en route to becoming one of the finest white-ball bowlers in Australia and now in franchise cricket.
After facing a series of rejections in New South Wales, at the age of 22, Nathan Ellis moved to Tasmania to make a living out of cricket. He had no contract, no job, but the only thing that kept him going was the hunger to prove his naysayers wrong. To pay his bills, he has done not one but five to six jobs. He has been a landscaping worker, working at a construction site, a furniture removal (moving heavy goods from one place to other), a teacher’s assant at a high school but the most annoying job, his own admission, was being a salesman.
“There were lots of annoying and boring jobs that I did. Besides, there was a job, knocking on people’s doors in the morning that I did. I was a door to door salesman. That was terrible because you are sort of knocking at strangers’ doors in the morning. I have been door slammed in my face. The only people you’re knocking on the doors of are home sick from work or have got young children or babies. So you’re waking young kids up or you’re waking people up who are sick, so I just got the door slammed in my face for eight hours a day.
“The other was probably the construction worker job. When you are trying to play cricket at a high level and working at construction, the body is just not able to handle it. I found it quite tricky and I was not able to do construction for a long period because It was running me into the ground.
“The working hours were very tricky. When I was training with Cricket Tasmania, I would train really early in the morning or in the evening. The reason I did the manual labour work is because it started very early and finished early and I was able to do training with the squad. It was hard on the body. They wanted me to work on Saturdays as well. I had to quit that one because I wanted to play cricket on Saturdays,” he recalled.
Punjab Kings’ Nathan Ellis takes the catch of Rajasthan Royals’s Jos Buttler during the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 match between Punjab Kings and Rajasthan Royals, in Guwahati, India, Wednesday, April 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
These jobs made him mentally strong. The seamer was unearthed as one of the breakout stars in league cricket, with his back-of-the-hand slower balls and skiddy yorkers catching the eye.
“Cricket has been challenging. At the time, you don’t feel lucky when you were not selected at a younger age but the bonus is that when you get older in professional cricket, the life experience and exposure outside the cricket really helps you,” he said.
“I definitely feel the pressure and the nerve, but there is no harm in trying. It has worked in my favour. For example, the Vitality Blast final last year, where I had to bowl the last ball twice because I had overstepped. After all the celebration, umpires signalled no ball. It was quite dramatic. I should have won two medals because we won the game twice,” said Ellis, who helped Hampshire beat Lancashire in the final.
Like all his jobs, in cricket, too, he plans a lot before every match.
“I am an over-thinker,” he laughs. “I am a prepared person in general. I like to be organised. I think preparation can manage nerves and manage expectations. Not every game is going to be your game, not every night is going to be your night. If you prepare, you are setting yourself up to do well,” he said.
With small boundaries and with top edges flying for sixes, Ellis felt the death bowlers should be given more time to set their field in the slog overs.
“This game is made for sixes and fours. I like taking on the challenges and that’s all you can do and that is within your powers. You got to bowl overs in time; otherwise, you will have an extra fielder in the ring. As a death bowler, I don’t like this rule.
“I understand the entertainment value of the rules. Batting makes it an exciting contest and brings the crowd and at the end of the day, we are also trying to put on a show and not let the batters feel at home,” he said.
The extraordinary recent rise of Nathan Ellis has come at a cost. He has always been a family man but due to cricket and now his contracts with different leagues, he is not able to see his loved ones regularly, which hurts him a lot.
“When I left home, it was a big decision. My parents were on board. They just wanted me to do well and give it a crack and if it didn’t go according to plan, they had my back.
Mohali: Punjab Kings bowler Nathan Ellis with teammates celebrates the wicket during IPL 2023 cricket match between Punjab Kings and Kolkata Knight Riders, at Punjab Cricket Association Stadium in Mohali, Saturday, April 1, 2023. (PTI Photo/Kamal Kishore)
“But in the past six years, I haven’t been home (Sydney) a lot. It has been the downside of chasing my passion. My ser had a kid, I was not there. I haven’t been there in part of their lives. I try to go there even if it is for a day, but there are pros and cons of being a cricketer,” he said.
In 2019, after playing cricket without any contract for two years, Ellis had almost given up on cricket. One day, he decided to pack his bags and focus on doing something else with his life. The morning he was supposed to leave, he got an unexpected call from the then Tasmania coach Adam Griffith, who invited him to train with the state squad over pre-season.
“After playing two cricket seasons. I had spent all my money. All my friends back home had careers, money and home and I also wanted to come back and do something else. I had given up. Then Griffith called me and without any promises, he told me to give it another crack. I took the chance, and risk and gave one more year and the rest is hory. Since then, everything has happened very fast.”