3 reasons why Nathan Ellis can finish as highest wicket-taker of T20 World Cup 2024
It takes an Australian team that has won everything to have enough courage to drop Pat Cummins, the man who led them to most of everything, for Nathan Ellis, who till Thursday hadn't played a game in World Cups.
Australia ignored that Cummins led SunRisers Hyderabad to the final of IPL 2024 marshalling them from the front as one of the best fast bowlers on flat tracks in a batter-friendly competition. Whereas, Ellis couldn't make it to a ninth-finishing Punjab Kings (PBKS)' playing 11 for more than one match.
So are Australia dumb? Ellis proved that they are not by picking two wickets for 28 runs against Oman -- one each on either end of his four-over spell -- in Barbados. It felt that the 29-year-old had all the qualities to emerge as the tournament's highest wicket-taker in the competition. Here are three reasons detailing the same.
#3 Nathan Ellis is perfect for the pitches in the US and West Indies
Ellis' first ball on his World Cup debut, in the fifth over of Oman's innings, was a back-of-the-hand slower one. Aqib Ilyas took a single on it. Ellis' second ball to Kashyan was a nearly 140kph length ball, the third was a bouncer and the fourth was another slower one -- all were dots. The fifth, a wobbled-seam ball on a length, ultimately took out Kashyap, trapping him LBW in front.
And those are not even all the variations he has. Ellis' unpredictability and variations are his biggest skills. There's hardly anyone who does it better and with more accuracy than him in the world at the moment. On the kind of pitches we have seen so far in the US and West Indies, such variety is gold dust. This is what he has used to rise up the ranks in Australia, on tracks more difficult for bowling.
Here, most batters are backing themselves to play quicker balls but the slower ones have led to a ton of wickets. As the pitches deteriorate further, Ellis' value will only increase and so will the numbers in his wicket column for the tournament.
#2 A well defined role
Thanks to how the team is built, Ellis has a role that fits his skills perfectly. He doesn't need to bowl anything till the fifth or sixth over because Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood take care of that. While Starc is a big wicket-taking threat even if expensive sometimes, Hazlewood just doesn't leak runs.
This would more often than not give Ellis the platform to exploit either new batters or openers desperate for runs with the field spread out. He can usually divide his four overs in a 2:2 or 3:1 ratio for middle and death. This clarity isn't everywhere, for example, India, where all pacers play similar roles for their IPL franchises.
Without needing to bowl with the hard ball, he gets the best conditions for his style and can bowl in the phases where most wickets are likely to fall this World Cup.
#1 Ellis is supported by excellent partners in Zampa and Maxwell
Bowlers can't pick wickets without partnerships. This is what Jasprit Bumrah struggled with for a bit during IPL 2024 when batters started to play him out and attack his partners more to get their runs. That's not the case in Australia.
Apart from having conditions in line with his skills, Ellis gets dream partners in Adam Zampa, Glenn Maxwell and even Marcus Stoinis (who took three wickets against Oman). Zampa has an economy rate of just 6.97 in middle overs in T20Is while Maxwell is not too bad at 7.42.
This means that batters don't have a respite or the option to play out Ellis. It's a luxury he didn't usually have at the Hobard Hurricanes, where he's the captain, in the Big Bash League, either. Now, with them and Hazlewood and Starc at the death, his skills are likely to be launched into excellent performances.