Comeback gun wants to ‘put on a show’

Australian quick Nathan Ellis is itching to string together as many games as possible for his country after making a successful return from injury against Pakistan.

Shattered after a hamstring injury ruled him out of white-ball matches in September against Scotland and England, the 30-year-old paceman bounced back with three wickets in two overs in Australia’s 29-run win over the Pakistanis in Thursday night’s abbreviated T20 battle at the Gabba.

In the absence of Australia’s top three fast bowlers Pat Cummins, Mitch Starc and Josh Hazlewood, who are all preparing for the first Test against India starting next Friday in Perth, Ellis showed off all his skills, taking 3-9 in the rain reduced opener.

And he wants another opportunity when the T20 series against Pakistan continues in Sydney on Saturday.

“The quicks in there now ­– myself, Spence (Spencer Johnson), ‘Sabba’ (Sean Abbott) and `X’ (Xavier Bartlett) we’re all chomping at the bit to get our opportunity and play as many games as we can and string as many games we can together while we’re here,” said the Hobart Hurricanes quick who now has 18 T20 internationals to his name.

“You never want to miss any games for Australia. You work so hard to get there … (but) that one specifically, I knew I was going to get a good opportunity to play some games for Australia, so it was one I had pinned on the calendar knowing the schedule and the workload of the stalwarts. I knew I was going to get a good run at it, so to miss that obviously was really disappointing.

“I’m really thankful to have put that behind me now, get back on the park, and get a win in Aussie colours.“

The match was shortened to just seven overs a side after rain, thunderstorms and lightning in Brisbane delayed the start of the game by two hours and 20 minutes.

When it was finally time to play, Glenn Maxwell’s hard-hitting 43 off 19 balls inspired Australia to a total of 93 for the loss of four wickets from its seven overs.

From there, Ellis dominated with the ball as Pakistan stumbled its way to 9-64 from its seven overs to go one down in the three-match T20 series.

“In a short game like that, every ball’s an event for me,” Ellis said.

“You’re just trying to kill the game as quickly as possible.”

Ellis described Maxwell as a “freak”.

“For ‘Maxy’ to go out and do what he did … and get us in a position to win the game, he’ a freak but it’s pretty well documented,” he said.

“I’m really happy to see him get some runs. It’s pretty good signs for us to see him do that in the first game, so hopefully he can string together a couple of exciting performances in the next two.

”Hopefully, we can put on a show.”