At his best in swinging English conditions, he lacked the raw pace to intimidate batsman under blue skies on tour in the West Indies that winter and his career suffered a further setback when a back injury forced him to miss the 1987 season.
"[2] Ellison's mother's "records of family cricketing achievements show that his great-grandfather played against the Grace brothers in the nineteenth century and that his grandfather captained Derbyshire Second XI at the age of 60".
[3] Ellison himself "gives the credit for his development into a swing bowler to Alan Dixon, his coach at Tonbridge School, who later recommended the young all-rounder to his own former county, Kent.
[3] At school, he was considered primarily a left-handed batsmen, and played alongside Christopher Cowdrey, who was to become his county captain in professional cricket.
I hadn't even planned to stay on in education past 16: I wanted to join the Royal Marines, but problems with my back prevented that.
[8] Two years earlier Ellison had also played a key role in Kent's campaign as they had lost the 1984 NatWest Trophy final to the same opponents off the very last ball of the match.
[10] Ellison made his Test debut against the West Indies in 1984, playing the last match of a series in which England were heavily defeated.
[13][14] He also made his one-day international debut this winter in the series against India,[15] also playing in the Benson & Hedges World Championship of Cricket and the 1984–85 Four-Nations Cup.
Ellison's recollection is that "Kent, my county, were playing a game against Leicestershire in July and I approached [England captain] David Gower and said: 'I'm going to make you pick me.'
At the end of the Ashes series, England captain David Gower made an assertion to the media that the West Indies would be "trembling in their boots".
But like Tony Greig's "grovelling" faux pas of a decade earlier, Gower did little but provoke West Indies' mean machine into a full frontal assault.
"[22] The ensuing 5–0 defeat to West Indies on the 1985–86 tour had, according to William Buckland, a simple rationale: For England, Botham, Richard Ellison, Greg Thomas and Neil Foster bought wickets at [an average of] 42 while the batsmen gave them away at 20.
[27] In 1990, Ellison was a member of the 'rebel' England team that toured South Africa in defiance of the international cricket boycott of the country, which was then under apartheid rule.
[29] In 2001, Ellison spoke out as a believer that schools cricket "should be played in the first half of the winter term", because of the increasing impact of examinations, notably the advent of AS Levels in the lower sixth.
Babies in prams look at me strangely quite a lot, so when I talk to them I have to put my finger over my top lip to soften the blow.