Hands off Ellis, BBL rivals told

Interest in the former Sydneysider, who secured the second-last Hobart contract for BBL09, is expected to skyrocket, but Griffith (pictured above) declared Ellis will be going nowhere.

“There will be but they won’t be getting him, he will be staying right here,” Griffith said. “He plays a very specific role in the team, he finishes the powerplay for us and then finishes the game for us.

“There are not a lot of players who can do that well.

“I would hope he will be in the conversation at the table anyway, I hope his name would get mentioned.

“He is someone that brings a different skill set. To be able to bowl yorkers, and be confident to bowl them and execute them is something not a lot of players in the world can do.

“I think we will see Nathan playing a lot of cricket in a lot of formats for a long time.”

Ellis’s path to Big Bash stardom is one of the stories of the summer. He moved to Tasmania two seasons ago without a contract but with an insatiable work ethic, eventually breaking into the Tasmanian one-day outfit and establishing himself in the T20 arena. And it is the tough road travelled that Griffith believes will only fuel his drive to keep improving.

“The thing with Nathan is he has had to fight tooth and nail and live off the smell of an oily rag and fight and fight and fight to get where he is,” said Griffith, who likened Ellis to Perth star AJ Tye.

“He is not going to let this opportunity slip now.”