CSK Should Release Nathan Ellis Before IPL 2027: One Game in Two Seasons

Hello Yellow Army, Let me start with a confession: I like Nathan Ellis. I really do. The slower ball, the yorker at the death, and the batting ability to hit six and win for a team. On paper he is exactly the sort of bowler we want in yellow playing Chepauk.

And that's the problem. On paper. For two years now, "Nathan Ellis" at CSK has been more of a promise than a player. We keep waiting for him, he keeps almost turning up, and the match starts without him.

This is an opinion piece, so I'll be upfront: I think CSK should release Nathan Ellis. Just like we did recently for Deepak Chahar, Pathirana, and Nandre Burger. Not because they are bad, and not because any of this is their fault. Because they are never there — and this year showed exactly what that costs.

Why CSK Wanted Him (and Why I Would Have Too)

When CSK singed him in 2024, it really made complete sense. Just look at his career profile, in 2019 Ellis was a club cricketer who had moved from New South Wales to Tasmania, working as a landscape gardener, a labourer and a teacher's aide. He made his Hobart Hurricanes debut in 2019-20, then took 20 wickets in 14 matches in 2020-21, still his best BBL season for wickets; in August 2021 he took a hat-trick on his T20I debut against Bangladesh.

It does not end here he was even the world's leading T20 wicket-taker in 2023, with 66 — one ahead of Rashid Khan. In 2024-25 he captained Hobart to their first Big Bash title.

So obviously, it made sense and CSK rightly bought him in November 2024 for ₹2 crore, which looked like a steal.

The Receipts: One Game in Two Years for CSK

The decision was good but unfortuntely the stars of CSK and Natha Ellis could not match up until now. Here is his entire CSK career, from our IPL data:

One game, one wicket, a win — and then nothing. He never got another game in 2025 for obvious reason due to team combination and squad rotation. Matheesha Pathirana was already CSK's main bowler and was picked above him, and with CSK grappling to find their XI that season, Ellis was the one left out.

Then 2026 was supposed to be the year. CSK retained him at ₹2 crore as the death-overs answer after they let Matheesha Pathirana go — a decision we picked apart in our IPL 2026 bowling review. And then the hamstring went. It flared up in the Big Bash in January, he aggravated it in the One-Day Cup final on March 11, and CSK announced a minimum of three months of rehab. The season began without him and ended with CSK eighth, as our batting review covered.

The Part That Stings: He's Fine For Australia. International Workload Keeps Growing

As a CSK fan, I feel slightly personally attacked. His injury may be the coincidence I'm not denying that but still this coincidence feels more like a betrayal to me.

The IPL final was on 31 May. A day before it, on 30 May, and about 12 days before CSK's "minimum of three months" would even have been up, Ellis played an ODI for Australia against Pakistan in Rawalpindi and bowled 7 overs for 45 runs and 2 wickets. Two days later, on 2 June, he took 4/33 in 9 overs in Lahore and was named Player of the Match. Then Bangladesh, then The Hundred (nine games for Sunrisers Leeds, 11 wickets), then Zimbabwe, where he took 5/31 in the first ODI and 3/50 in the decider, where he also finished 36* off 44 to seal a one-wicket win. He's openly targeting a 2027 World Cup spot.

His career numbers are the record of a healthy, wicket-taking fast bowler: 58 wickets in 39 T20Is at an economy of 7.67, and 40 ODI wickets at an economy of 5.22. Just... not between late March and late May.

It isn't a conspiracy; it's unluckiness. And the luck changed after CSK bought him. He suddendly started emerging as a main pace bowler for Australia rightly so based on his outstanding performance in International cricket.

So as the nation call-up also increased. Here is his international workload by year, from his career ODI and T20I bowling records:

When CSK bought him he was coming off a quiet year. Then he went to 21 matches and roughly 117 overs in 2025 — nearly five times the previous year's bowling — and 2026 already sits at 17 matches and 106 overs, before The Hundred or the Big Bash are counted. Between 30 May and 21 June alone he played eight internationals in 23 days, straight off a hamstring injury.

The bowler CSK thought they were getting (a T20 specialist with a light international load) and the bowler they have (an Australian white-ball regular with a World Cup to chase) are not the same person. And the more Australia need him, the less available he'll be to CSK.

Then, in the second ODI against South Africa in Johannesburg, he bowled four overs, picked up a left side strain and walked off. He's out of the final ODI and back home for assessment, with Australia hoping he's fit for the England series from November 13.

I'm not pretending to know his medical file, and I'm not saying he's careless with his body. But look at the pattern from the outside: no game for CSK for most of 2025 because of combination and rotation, a hamstring that cost him the whole of IPL 2026, and now a side strain on the Australia tour. Different reasons each time, same result for CSK. They retained him at ₹2 crore to be their death-overs answer, and the outcomes keep saying "unreliable for the IPL, every time."

And it's not getting lighter. If he fits again, Australia schedule is already packed with lot of matches. Australia will host England for ODI and T20 series, then there's the Big Bash with Hobart, and the 2027 World Cup spot he's openly chasing. With that much international cricket lined up before the IPL even starts, who knows whether he will be fit again when CSK need him?

Ellis Plays Everywhere — Except the IPL

Apart from the International workload, Nathan Ellis also needs to relook his other T20 league schedule as he keeps showing up for all but not CSK. Here's his franchise T20 career, by league, from his career bowling records:

That's 157 franchise matches and 186 wickets — and only about one game in nine is in the IPL. His IPL seasons read 3 matches in 2021, 2 in 2022, 10 in 2023, 1 in 2024, 1 in 2025 and 0 in 2026: 2023 is the only full one. Across the last three seasons, that's two matches in total. The causes differ (2026 was the hamstring; 2024 and 2025 aren't obviously injuries), but the pattern cuts against the simple story that CSK were just unlucky: no IPL team has really found a settled role for him. Punjab gave him one full season and let him go; CSK used him once.

Elsewhere he's a fixture. He has played 8 to 15 Big Bash games for Hobart in each of the last seven seasons, and took 23 wickets in 16 games for Hampshire in the 2023 Blast. The IPL is the one place he's an occasional.

Good Everywhere Else Isn't the Same as Good in the IPL

There's also an uncomfortable truth: nobody actually knows how good he'd be for CSK, because the evidence comes from other leagues and other pitches. The IPL has a long record of humbling players who were brilliant everywhere else.

• Glenn Maxwell hit a World Cup double century for Australia and was excellent for RCB in 2021 and 2023. In 2024 he scored 52 runs in nine innings, dismissed nine times in 43 balls; in 2025, at Punjab, 48 runs in six matches.
• Sam Curran was Player of the Tournament at the 2022 T20 World Cup and the most expensive player in IPL history that winter. In the IPL he has 59 wickets in 63 matches at an economy of 9.74.
• Ben Stokes cost CSK ₹16.25 crore in 2023 and bowled in exactly one match, at 18 an over.

Now apply it to Ellis. His economy is 7.67 in T20Is and 8.28 in the Big Bash, but 8.66 in the IPL and 10.65 at the death (142 balls, 9 wickets, going by our data). That's good, not special. And Chepauk? Conventional wisdom says a slow surface helps a change-of-pace bowler, but as our Chepauk analysis found, the ground has moved toward the league norm — spin lost its grip and scoring rose with the rest of the IPL. "He'll love Chepauk" is a guess too.

Every argument for keeping him is about what he might do in yellow. The IPL evidence, what has actually happened, is thin and merely decent. A plan shouldn't rest on speculation, however talented.

What It Cost CSK

Our bowling review found CSK's attack was tidier than the playoff teams' overall, but the death overs leaked at nearly 11 an over. Both designated solutions — Pathirana, released, and Ellis, injured — were gone before the season started. The back five overs went to "whoever was standing": Spencer Johnson, Ellis's replacement, played three games and took two wickets at just over 10 an over, while Anshul Kamboj heroically ran at the job and finished with 21 wickets, in a role nobody had planned for him.

That's the real damage. It's not that Ellis wasn't there; it's that CSK's strategy assumed he would be, so when he wasn't, there was no Plan B until Kamboj stood up for initial few games.

CSK's Release History: Hazlewood, Chahar, Pathirana

This isn't new for CSK. In the past they have also let go of bowlers who were unreliable because of injuries, or who rarely played for them. So is CSK's judgement on letting bowlers go any good? Three very different stories.

It also matters that CSK have long been good with Australian quicks — when they played. Doug Bollinger took 37 wickets in 27 games at 7.22 across 2010–12, including both title years; Ben Hilfenhaus took 14 wickets in 9 games in 2012. They weren't special because they were Australian. They were special because they turned up often enough to build around.

And let's be honest about what CSK actually are. This was never about having the best bowler in the world. CSK have never been known for the best bowling lineup on paper. They're known for taking an average or above-average bowler, giving him a clear role and getting the best out of him, and that is how we have won five trophies without ever having the world's best attack. What CSK need is a reliable, good bowler who is there when the season starts, and a plan to use him well. A big name who sits in the squad but not on the field doesn't win anyone a trophy.

The lesson: CSK's worst release wasn't about injuries — it was letting a fit, winning bowler walk. It isn't "release everyone who's been hurt"; it's "judge availability and role, not reputation." And Ellis is the cheap version of the question: at ₹2 crore, the risk isn't the money, it's the plan.

So What Should CSK Do?

Here's what I'd do heading into the IPL 2027 cycle.

1. Release him before the auction. Keeping him is cheap at ₹2 crore, but the real price is the plan. A cheap player who disrupts your plan every time isn't actually cheap.

2. Replace him with a fit, proven overseas seamer — someone with a clean recent record and real IPL minutes, named before the auction, with a fit backup for every key role rather than a panic signing in March.

3. Set a fitness bar, and mean it. For anyone with a recent hamstring history, the medical report should matter as much as the wicket tally. Zaheer Khan, a fast bowler who spent a career managing his own body, is well placed to ask the awkward questions.

4. Build the death-overs plan around Indian bowlers — Kamboj, Khaleel, Mukesh and Gurjapneet don't vanish for a World Cup or a Big Bash campaign. And they are not just names on a list right now. Kamboj was already doing well in domestic cricket for India A, including 3/34 against Australia A, and that earned him an ODI call-up and then his ODI debut. Mukesh just took a five-wicket haul in the Irani Cup, mixing the inswinger, the outswinger and the bouncer, which only strengthens his bowling arsenal. Follow both on the Super Kings Player Tracker.

5. If you can, do it through the trade window, not the bin. The window runs through December and the trade rumour mill is already warming up.

The Bottom Line

Nathan Ellis is a good bowler who is regularly out of action at exactly the wrong time for CSK. Both things are true, and neither is his fault. But the decision to keep counting on him is the franchise's, and it's the one they can change.

Release him, find someone who will actually be there in April, and save the "we wish him a speedy recovery" statement for a bowler who has played more than one game. Ellis can go and be brilliant for Australia. He's clearly good at it.

Stay healthy stay yellow.

For the rest of the squad's injury news and form — including Ellis's latest — read our CSK Squad Update. Want the numbers behind this piece? See Nathan Ellis's full IPL profile. And for day-by-day updates on every CSK player, follow the Super Kings Player Tracker, including Ellis's updates.