Nathan Coulter-Nile almost gave up before getting a call for the India tour

A string of injuries made Australian fast bowler Nathan Coulter-Nile consider a career in just the shortest format of the game. But with the recent call-up for the limited-overs series against India, Coulter-Nile isn’t ready to give up yet. Australia will play 5 ODIs in India starting September 19.

The fast bowler also said that he wasn’t sure of his chances, as he lost his contract with Cricket Australia, and with former great Greg Chappell coming in, the pacer thought that his chances are almost over, as the former Indian coach prefers the youth to join the setup.

“I lost my Australian contract and Greg Chappell came on as a selector (in a new role) and we all know he’s got a big youth focus. I was having a good IPL at the time so I thought I could probably just do this. I thought it might be time just to focus on forging a career in T20s,” he said speaking to Seven West Media.

Nathan is extremely talented: Ponting

Earlier, Ricky Ponting had spoken about Coulter-Nile and said that he is very talented.  Speaking to cricket.com.au, he said, “He’s a highly-talented player and he’s probably someone who’s been a little bit forgotten in Australian cricket because he’s been injured so much. We didn’t see him at all last season (2016-17) domestically, but the year before that we’d seen him in the Australian one-day and T20 teams and he was on the fringe of playing some Test cricket as well.”

“Anyone who can bowl above 140kph and swing the ball in India is going to make an impact. It’s not what the Indian top-order players are used to seeing and even for overseas top-order players, you’ve still got to be good enough to score runs and not get out against high-quality fast-bowling like Coulter-Nile’s,” Ponting said.

The 29-year old has played 16 ODIs and 17 T20s for Australia. He has scalped 27 and 21 wickets in ODIs and T20Is respectively.