Interview with Northern Knights batsman Marc Ellison

By Gerard Mulreaney (@gerardmulreaney)

The Test Triangle IP50 competition got underway in La Manga, Spain last week as players looked to try and catch the eye of Irish selectors ahead of the upcoming One-Day International’s against England, the West Indies, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

One such player was Northern Knights batsman Marc Ellison. While Ellison is a New Zealander, he will be eligible to play for Ireland in 2020, if selected. He is eligible to be selected for the Wolves. 

In two games last week Ellison scored 87 in a win over the North West Warriors, and backed that up with 85 in a loss to the Leinster Lightning, in a game that saw current Irish International Andrew Balbirnie score a superb 125 off 126 balls. 

I caught up with Ellison following his good week with the bat and asked him about the trip to Spain, “It was a really cool week. I obviously feel really privileged to be able to have the opportunity in the first place to play this standard of cricket at my age. This standard is something that passed me by in New Zealand. I'm just trying to do every single thing I can to try to make the most of it and to do it for as long as I can. Just really grateful to have the chance to play at this level, let alone travel to Spain. I'd never been to mainland Spain before, I'd only been to Gran Canaria in the past for holidays. Very cool seeing different parts of the world, and the facility itself there was beautiful. I hope we get the opportunity to go back, but I guess time will tell.”

The weather in Spain was surprisingly wet, which is quite ironic when you consider the reason for going to La Manga in the first place, but the Knights got off to a winning start in their opener, a 4 wicket victory over the Warriors. 

Ellison said, “Really happy to win the first game. I guess adjusting to the conditions was the first thing. It was a bit tennis-bally, the wicket after the rain, certainly stickier in the middle of the wicket, and so the ball didn't come through quite as quick as it might normally on a harder wicket. What that meant was just needing to make an adjustment. Trying to get myself in and used to the conditions as quick as possible and then implementing my game plan, which was to cut and pull off the back foot, drive strongly down the ground and then rotate the strike as often as possible when the ball is in between. The ball seamed around a little bit on both days actually, so it's just a matter of when the ball is in that good area, trying to leave anytime I feel uncomfortable to drive, and trying to make the bowlers bowl into my areas where I'm confident of scoring. I was really pleased with the first performance, that we were able to put a decent score on the board, and then get the win.”

As for the second game, a 6-wicket defeat to the Leinster Lightning Ellison said, “It's a challenge when batting first, you never know how many runs you need, and I guess that was the nature of the loss in the second game. Obviously, in hindsight we didn't have enough and with the calibre of batting line-up the Lightning have, they an embarrassment of riches there. I mean the fact that George Dockrell's batting 7, given the IP50 series that he had last year, just goes to show the depth that they have. That means that we have to rise to the occasion and find a way to take wickets more frequently than we were able to on Thursday, so that's the challenge moving forward. Obviously Leinster deserved the victory, they did it relatively comfortably in the end, so yeah we've got a few things to tidy up.”

On the things needed to tidy up on Ellison continued, “We need to try to build more pressure, completing our overs, not offering easy four-balls, but also our fielding. I mean I put a catch down myself, Kevin O'Brien was only on a few, I was on the square-leg boundary and you just can't afford to do those types of things. While disappointing on the day, it's pretty clear what we need to work on for the next month. We've got about a month break now before the next IP 50 game, it's about making sure that our training, and in particular each individual should know what they need to improve on. It's just a matter of me, for example requesting more fielding training, being able to hopefully get outdoors a bit more now and practice that stuff to ensure that the next time the ball comes to me I snaffle the chance.”

While he was pleased to score the runs he got he was also critical of himself, “Pleased to make a couple of 80's I guess. The way our batting order stacked up, we've got a pretty explosive middle-order, five through to number nine, so it's nice to sort of set the innings up and give those guys a licence to play their natural way. Having said that, my job as an opener is to bat long and deed, and to make significant match-winning scores so to get 80 is a start, but I didn't finish the job. Ideally I'm 130 not out plus at the end of an innings, if it goes really well, so yes certainly disappointed not to have completed a century in either of the games.”

The Kiwi however did get a birds eye view of Balbirnie’s wonderful innings, even if he didn’t enjoy it at the time, “While it wasn't necessarily fun at the time, watching the way Andrew Balbirnie went about his play was really impressive to see. Just how he accumulated well and when the opportunity presented itself, both against seam and spin, he hit the ball to the boundary and over the boundary with relative ease. I feel fortunate to see a guy like that go about his innings, he obviously did it in Dehrudan against Afghanistan, that must have been a very very special innings, and as far as I've seen this was right up there as well.”

“Credit to him, it's an opportunity for all the other batsmen, including myself, to see how he went about things, have the skill and work on my own skills in terms of learning how to rotate the strike as effectively and efficiently as possible. As I said, while not necessarily fun being out there losing, certainly some good lessons to be learned and put into training over the next month, before we get the next opportunity to get back out there.”

Leinster are the team to beat in the IP50, having won the competition for the past five seasons, so I asked him has the gap between them closed. Ellison said, “I do believe the gap between us and them is closing. Having Gary Wilson there, already he's had a massive impact on our squad. Clearly his experience is pretty much unparalleled, from an Irish cricket perspective. You've got the likes of Kevin O'Brien, Niall in seasons gone by, and also someone like Porterfield as well who have played, in or around the same number of games, if not more for Ireland. Having our own version of them, I guess, to come back and play for us is a real blessing and it's a great opportunity for us to pick his brain, fill any gaps we have in our knowledge, listen to him and implement the plans that he feels are best on any given day.”

“That's been a massive coup for us getting Gary back in. Just the leadership qualities that he has in the squad, let alone his playing ability. With the winter he's had I think it was a very impressive return to cricket, not just as captain, but his batting, particularly in game 1 against the North-West Warriors. It was good to share in a partnership with him which helped set us up nicely. Let alone his keeping, which is always really tidy, I'm sure he'll be keen to improve even more. It just great to have that energy, and that voice behind the stumps constantly going throughout the innings to keep everyone in the field as engaged as possible.”

The Social Media analyst, he works for a corporate finance company called H&H, plays his club cricket with Civil Service North in the Robinson Services Premier League and he has high hopes of trophy success with the team this season, “We’ve obviously got a couple of additions. Clearly Gary is one, and secondly would be the fact that we've got Graeme McCarther for hopefully more of the season than we did last year. Graeme was working in Scotland last year so we didn't get to see much of him. Having him open the bowling along with our overseas pro Andre Malan, and then having someone like Matthew Foster, who won't be with us much until June because of college, it's a really good seam attack for us to try and push our trophy aspirations. It gives us a great opportunity to try and knock off some teams and put the pressure on.”

“We feel our squad has improved, we know we need to improve on a lot of other little things, in particular in the field, if we're going to seriously challenge for any trophies. I'm excited to be a part of that, and also to help the younger members of the squad to progress, the likes of Archie Johnston, Matthew Foster, Morgan Topping and Aaron Wright. Hopefully with the experience our senior players have, they can pick up on as many little things as possible and continue to improve their game.”

It was through his performances with Civil Service that the opportunity came to play with the Knights. He also talks about the special bond he has with the players at club level, “I've always loved the game, I've played since I was 5 years of age. Like any player I've had my struggles, and tried to learn from the failures I've had, now for me it's about trying to enjoy the time I have playing cricket because we only have so long to play this game at a high level. I've spent a number of years now working in an office environment, while I've enjoyed the time and the roles that I've had, it's very difficult to match the type of team environment you have with a bunch of guys that you enjoy, doing something that you really love doing.”

“In the case of playing for the Knights, you're getting paid for your time, that's hard to beat. I love the way the league works, the home and away fixtures. I love the standard of the cricket, even at club level, I love the passion that the players play with. I really love my club environment. I love the travel involved, I'm a big fan of seeing as much of the world as possible so travelling around this beautiful country is really enjoyable. We've got Coleraine first up this year, I haven't been to Coleraine before, so I'm looking forward to checking that out. Hopefully we get through that and we get drawn against another team from a location I've never been as well.”

Ellison 32, has International ambitions despite his age but he feels he still has lots to offer, “I want to play International cricket. Back in 2006 I captained New Zealand in the U19 Cricket World Cup and I guess that puts you on a bit of a pathway towards professional cricket in New Zealand, and hopefully International cricket. It was really disappointing that I wasn't able to fulfill my goals back home in New Zealand.”

“I did think the opportunity to play at that standard had passed me by, and it's taken me a shift in mentality, changing my mindset from maybe a fixed mindset to more of a growth mindset, where I'm trying to take every single opportunity to improve my game. Whether that be off the field, with fitness, yoga, strength, any kind of conditioning, mental skills, meditation, visualisation, diet, trying to give myself the best chance of playing for as long as I can. I'm 32, I feel I'm in great shape. My body's in good condition, I'm certainly keen to play as long as I can. Some people say that around this age you're potentially approaching your best years as a batsman, I'm keen to make that happen and make that case be true. I hope to play for a great number of years yet at as high a level as possible. 

“I know that in order to play for Ireland I need to really bang the door with runs. The more time you spend in the middle, the more you learn about you game. You're going to learn about handling different conditions and different types of bowlers.”

Picture Credit: CricketEurope