When Nathan Coulter-Nile received an IPL boost of $450,000 to his 150-dollar bank account
In one of the most amazing stories of how the Indian Premier League (IPL) can transform cricketers’ lives, Australian pacer Nathan Coulter-Nile once received a boost of $450,000 to his bank account when it had only 150 dollars of cash available.
The cricketer revealed he was shocked to know what had happened as his life turned in a matter of few minutes and he became rich before even playing internationally for Australia.
The incident highlighted here is with the backdrop of the auctions for the 2013 edition of the IPL where Coulter-Nile, present in Brisbane at the time, went for a dinner with his Western Australia teammates and had only 150 dollars in his bank at the time.
But when the cricketer left the dinner, he had got a pay cheque of $450,000 from the IPL auctions as Mumbai Indians (MI) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) entered a bidding war for him.
Nathan Coulter-Nile has played 34 games of IPL since his debut in the league in 2013. (pic courtesy: Twitter/cricket.com.au)
MI-RR bidding war ahead of IPL 2013 turned Nathan Coulter-Nile’s life
Starting with a base prize of $100,000, Nathan Coulter-Nile went on to be sold for an eye-catching sum of $450,000 by the immensely popular MI.
Coulter-Nile had spoken to News.com.au about the whole dinner incident. The cricketer revealed at the time how he had gone out to get some cash in order to pay for his dinner. But upon return, he saw all of his teammates gathered around the table while one of them had the IPL auction live on his phone.
When his teammates started shouting his name and asked him to come over as MI and RR camps both began raising the money, initially Coulter-Nile thought they are trying to fool him and he just laughed their cheers off.
But when he came to know what had transpired, the pacer could not believe his eyes and thought “What? This must be a joke.” The shock and disbelief immediately turned into smiles and laughter when the realisation hit that he is indeed now an IPL cricketer with a big contract up his name.
Funnily, when someone from the team had shouted “it’s your buy”, Nathan Coulter-Nile felt worried he might not be able to pay for the entire team’s dinner with his 150-dollar account. But only minutes later, he was richer than many from that playing group.
Even though Coulter-Nile played only one game that season with MI, he had much to feel pleased about. The Australian cricketer has played a total of 34 IPL matches in his career so far with 41 wickets and an economy rate of 7.75.