Quick Answer
Nathan Ellis is an Australian fast bowler who captains Tasmania and Hobart Hurricanes, and is best known for taking a hat-trick on his T20I debut in 2021, the first bowler in history to do so. He has taken 58 T20I wickets at an average of 18.07 and 28 ODI wickets at 34.54 for Australia, and in the 2023 calendar year he was the leading T20 wicket-taker in the entire world, with 66 wickets, one ahead of Rashid Khan. He has also played IPL cricket for Punjab Kings and Chennai Super Kings, T20 Blast for Hampshire, and The Hundred for London Spirit and Sunrisers Leeds.
His story is genuinely one of the better underdog tales in Australian cricket. Ellis took 160 wickets in four seasons of NSW Premier Cricket, but could not force his way into age group state selection, and moved to Tasmania in search of an opportunity, working as a landscape gardener, a labourer, and a teacher’s aide along the way. He began one entire off season without a professional contract at all, seriously considering a move back to Sydney, before everything changed. This article covers his full biography and every major number from his career, including a specific look at his BBL record. You can follow all the latest cricket news and player coverage on CRIC INFO 365.
Nathan Ellis: Full Biography at a Glance
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Nathan Trevor Ellis (Nathan Ellis) |
| Born | 22 September 1994, Greenacre, New South Wales, Australia |
| Age | 31 |
| Height and Weight | Not publicly confirmed, widely described as a short, skiddy fast bowler |
| Batting Style | Right-handed |
| Bowling Style | Right-arm fast-medium |
| Playing Role | Bowler |
| T20I Debut | 6 August 2021, vs Bangladesh (cap 98) |
| ODI Debut | 29 March 2022, vs Pakistan (cap 235) |
| Current Roles | Captain of Tasmania and Hobart Hurricanes |
Teams Nathan Ellis Has Played For
| Team | Format / League | Years |
|---|---|---|
| Randwick-Petersham | Grade cricket (NSW) | Early career |
| Hobart Hurricanes | Big Bash League (BBL) | 2018/19 to present |
| Tasmania | First-Class / List A | 2019/20 to present |
| Punjab Kings | Indian Premier League (IPL) | 2021 to 2024 |
| Hampshire | T20 Blast (England) | 2022 to 2023 |
| London Spirit | The Hundred (England) | 2022 to 2024 |
| Chennai Super Kings | Indian Premier League (IPL) | 2025 |
| Sunrisers Leeds | The Hundred (England) | 2026 |
| Australia | ODI, T20I | 2021 to present |
Nathan Ellis was born and raised in Sydney, playing his grade cricket for Randwick-Petersham. He relocated to Hobart in 2017 in search of a genuine opportunity in professional cricket, a move that ultimately transformed his career.
Who Is Nathan Ellis and How Did His Career Start?
Nathan Trevor Ellis (Nathan Ellis) was born on 22 September 1994 in Greenacre, New South Wales. He bowls right-arm fast-medium and bats right-handed down the order, and is widely known in Australian cricket as a genuine late bloomer.
His early career is a real lesson in persistence. According to cricket.com.au’s profile of his rise, Ellis dominated NSW Premier Cricket, taking 160 wickets at an average of 22 across four seasons, but still could not force his way into age group state selection. Rather than give up, he relocated to Hobart in 2017, working a mix of jobs, including a landscape gardener, a labourer, and a teacher’s aide, while trying to break into Tasmania’s professional set up.
His BBL debut came on 5 October 2018, for Hobart Hurricanes in the 2018 Abu Dhabi T20 Trophy, against a Lahore franchise representing the Pakistan T20 League. He bowled an economical spell and picked up his first domestic wicket in that game, a modest but promising start to his professional career.
How Did Nathan Ellis Almost Give Up on Professional Cricket?
This is genuinely the most dramatic part of his early career, and it is worth telling in full. According to CREX’s detailed career profile, Ellis began the 2019-20 off season without a professional contract in any format, and was seriously considering moving back to his hometown of Sydney. Before that happened, a Tasmania coach invited him to join the state’s pre-season program, a decision that changed the direction of his entire career.
That opportunity paid off almost immediately. He made his List A debut for Tasmania on 23 September 2019, and just weeks later produced a genuinely stunning performance, taking 5 wickets for 38 runs against a Test-strength New South Wales side featuring David Warner and Steve Smith, at North Sydney Oval, earning Player of the Match honours in a six wicket win for Tasmania. Local media at the time nicknamed him the “baby-faced assassin” for the performance.
His First-Class debut followed on 24 February 2020, in the 2019-20 Sheffield Shield season, and he made an immediate impact there too, capturing 18 wickets in just two matches, with best figures of 6 for 43, at an average of just 16.
How Did Nathan Ellis Make His International Breakthrough?
Nathan Ellis’s BBL form kept climbing through the 2020-21 season, described by ESPNcricinfo as a genuine breakout campaign for Hobart Hurricanes. Ahead of BBL|11, he had taken 20 wickets at an economy of 8.31, the fifth best return in the entire competition that season, including a standout 4 for 34 against Perth Scorchers.
That form earned him an Australian call up, and what happened next made headlines around the cricket world. Ellis made his T20I debut on 6 August 2021 against Bangladesh in Mirpur, and took a hat-trick, becoming the first bowler in the history of T20 International cricket to achieve the feat on debut. It remains one of the most remarkable entries into international cricket by any Australian bowler.
A few months later, he signed his first IPL deal with Punjab Kings, and was named as a reserve player in Australia’s 2021 T20 World Cup squad. His ODI debut followed on 29 March 2022, against Pakistan in Lahore, where he finished with figures of 1 for 36, including the wicket of Fakhar Zaman.
How Did Nathan Ellis Become the World’s Leading T20 Wicket Taker?
Through 2022 and 2023, Ellis built a reputation as one of the most reliable death bowlers anywhere in world cricket, adding stints with Hampshire in the T20 Blast and London Spirit in The Hundred alongside his ongoing IPL and BBL commitments. That consistency across every league he played in culminated in a genuinely remarkable achievement, in the 2023 calendar year, Ellis finished as the leading T20 wicket-taker in the entire world, with 66 wickets, one ahead of the great Rashid Khan.
Despite that global form, cracking a regular starting spot in Australia’s own T20I side proved difficult, given the strength and depth of the country’s pace bowling stocks at the time. According to Wisden’s career overview, by 2025 he was making an increasingly compelling case for a permanent berth, and the early months of 2026 marked what was described as his definitive graduation into a senior role within the Australian side, following the transition of several veteran stars out of the team.
What Was Nathan Ellis’s Biggest Career Moment as Captain?
This is arguably the emotional high point of his career so far. Ellis inherited the Hobart Hurricanes captaincy from veteran Matthew Wade in 2023. His first season in charge did not go to plan, with the Hurricanes winning just 4 of 10 matches and missing the finals entirely.
The following season told a completely different story. In the 2024-25 BBL, under Ellis’s leadership, Hobart Hurricanes won 8 of their 10 matches, and went on to become BBL|14 champions, with Ellis becoming the first ever Hobart Hurricanes captain to lift the BBL trophy. He played a starring role with the ball throughout that campaign, taking 13 wickets in 10 matches at an economy of 7.86. After the win, he described it simply as being “for Tasmanian cricket”, a short line that captured the full weight of a journey that had started with him nearly giving up on professional cricket altogether.
He carried that form straight into the 2025 IPL with Chennai Super Kings, making his debut in a marquee clash against Mumbai Indians and picking up a wicket immediately.
What Records and Honours Does Nathan Ellis Hold?
- First bowler in T20 International history to take a hat-trick on debut, against Bangladesh in 2021
- Leading T20 wicket-taker in the world for the 2023 calendar year, with 66 wickets, one ahead of Rashid Khan
- First ever Hobart Hurricanes captain to win the BBL title, leading the club to the BBL|14 championship in 2024-25
- Career-best First-Class figures of 6 for 43, part of an 18 wicket haul across just two matches in his debut Sheffield Shield season
- Career-best List A figures of 5 for 38, taken against a Test-strength New South Wales side in only his second List A match
- Multiple overseas T20 league stints, including the IPL, T20 Blast, and The Hundred
What Do Nathan Ellis’s Full Career Numbers Look Like?
The figures below are taken from his most recent official career statistics across every format.
Batting and Fielding Record
| Format | Matches | Innings | Runs | Average | Strike Rate | Highest Score | Catches | Run Outs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| T20I | 39 | 11 | 39 | 7.80 | 63.93 | 12 | 12 | 3 |
| ODI | 22 | 17 | 130 | 10.83 | 81.25 | 18 | 6 | 1 |
| First-Class (FC) | 10 | 14 | 205 | 14.64 | 36.48 | 41 | 3 | 0 |
| List A | 44 | 33 | 303 | 13.77 | 82.56 | 31 | 11 | 1 |
| Domestic T20 (Inc. BBL) | 167 | 76 | 502 | 12.24 | 114.61 | 40 | 52 | 7 |
| IPL | 17 | 5 | 19 | 4.75 | 76.00 | 12 | 2 | 0 |
Bowling Record
| Format | Innings | Wickets | Average | Economy | Strike Rate | Best Bowling | 4w / 5w |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| T20I | 39 | 58 | 18.07 | 7.68 | 14.12 | 4/12 | 2 / 0 |
| ODI | 22 | 28 | 34.54 | 5.30 | 39.1 | 4/33 | 1 / 0 |
| First-Class (FC) | 19 | 42 | 29.33 | 3.43 | 51.3 | 6/43 | 1 / 2 |
| List A | 44 | 63 | 29.03 | 5.19 | 33.56 | 5/38 | 2 / 1 |
| Domestic T20 (Inc. BBL) | 167 | 216 | 22.14 | 8.00 | 16.60 | 4/6 | 7 / 0 |
| IPL | 17 | 19 | 28.74 | 8.67 | 19.89 | 4/30 | 1 / 0 |
Ellis’s T20I bowling strike rate of 14.12 is a genuinely elite number, meaning he takes a wicket for Australia roughly once every two and a half overs in the format, and his 216 combined domestic T20 wickets confirm his standing as one of the most prolific death bowlers anywhere in world cricket.
What Does Nathan Ellis’s BBL Record Look Like Separately?
The Domestic T20 row above combines his BBL career with his T20 Blast and Hundred appearances in England. Based on AdvanceCricket’s detailed BBL only breakdown, here is his record narrowed down to just the Big Bash League.
BBL Bowling Record
| Matches | Innings | Wickets | Average | Strike Rate | Balls Bowled |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 71 | 71 | 86 | 24.90 | 18.24 | 1,569 |
BBL Batting Record
| Matches | Innings | Runs | Highest Score | Strike Rate | 4s | 6s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 71 | 40 | 348 | 40 | 130.3 | 31 | 12 |
His BBL wicket tally of 86 from just 71 matches is a genuinely outstanding return, and his strike rate of 18.24 shows he has remained a consistent wicket taking threat throughout his time with Hobart Hurricanes. A note on these figures, they come from a third party stats tracker rather than a single official BBL only career page, so his current total may be slightly higher given his ongoing BBL career. For the most up to date numbers, his live profile on ESPNcricinfo is the best place to check.
FAQs
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Has Nathan Ellis played international cricket for Australia?
Yes, in both white ball formats. He has played 39 T20Is and 22 ODIs for Australia, though he has not yet played a Test.
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What is Nathan Ellis’s most famous cricket record?
Taking a hat-trick on his T20I debut against Bangladesh in 2021, the first bowler in T20 International history to achieve the feat.
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What is Nathan Ellis’s height and weight?
This has not been publicly confirmed in available sources, though he is widely described in cricket media as a short, skiddy fast bowler.
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What is Nathan Ellis’s BBL record?
86 wickets from 71 matches for Hobart Hurricanes, at an average of 24.90 and a strike rate of 18.24, based on the most detailed third party tracking available.
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Did Nathan Ellis captain a BBL title winning team?
Yes. He captained Hobart Hurricanes to the BBL|14 title in 2024-25, becoming the first captain in the club’s history to win the trophy.
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How good was Nathan Ellis’s 2023 season in T20 cricket globally?
He finished as the leading T20 wicket-taker in the world for the entire 2023 calendar year, with 66 wickets, one ahead of Rashid Khan.
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Which IPL teams has Nathan Ellis played for?
Punjab Kings from 2021 to 2024, and Chennai Super Kings from 2025 onward.
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