Nathan Ellis hopes to become Australian mainstay in absence of Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc on UK tour

New Delhi: As Australia prepare for a T20I series against Scotland and England, Nathan Ellis is preparing to step out of the shadows of his fast bowling idols, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc.

With Cummins missing the entire UK tour as part of a load management strategy and Starc also absent for the T20 leg, Ellis will have the opportunity to lead the attack alongside Hazlewood.

“It’s a tough one for me because these are guys I’ve looked up to for a long time as a kid,” Ellis told cricket.com.au. “Now I’m at the point where I want to compete and be part of that group – they’re the big three, hopefully I can make it to the big four.

During the recent T20 World Cup, Ellis impressed with a wicket in every match he played, finishing the tournament with an economy rate of 6.72 despite often bowling to the end.

“It’s an honour to play with those guys and I just try to take advantage of all their preparation and how they go about it. They’ve been so good for so long, so I went into the World Cup with no illusions about where I stand in the pecking order. Maybe that’s a mentality I need to try to change, but they’ve been such great servants to our country and that deserves a lot of credit,” he said.

“I love playing for Australia and it’s something I don’t take for granted and I never will, so I hope I can become a bit of a mainstay, but to do that I have to play good cricket,” he added. IANS

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