Rising Australian bowler Andrew Tye is shocked by his $1.4 million IPL price tag and whirlwind rise, which has taken him from working on timber floors to international cricket.
Tye, who took a career-best 5-46 in last Sunday's final ODI against England, only learnt of his contract with Kings XI Punjab.after that game.
"Zamps (spinner Adam Zampa) told me after the presentation after I was walking off the ground," Tye said about his IPL deal.
"I didn't believe him, but I saw my family and my girlfriend and gave them a big hug and I asked them 'is it actually true' and it was pretty true, so I was pretty elated."
It continued the remarkable rise to prominence for Tye, who didn't play his first game of senior interstate cricket until a couple of months before his 27th birthday in late 2013.
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At one stage he''d pretty much given up on making a career out of cricket.
"I'd lived in the UK for 18 months and then came home, I was just enjoying playing club cricket," said Tye, who is part of the Australian squad for the T20 tri-series involving England and New Zealand.
"I got a chance to bowl at the (Perth) Scorchers and got put into a development squad and went from there.
"It's been a whirlwind tour from four of five years ago when I wasn't even a professional, so unbelievable and a dream come true."
The late-blooming bowler wasn't sure what he would have done had his cricket career not blossomed.
"I used to do timber flooring so I would probably be still be doing that," 31-year-old Tye said.
With Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood preparing for the upcoming Test series in South Africas, Tye is Australia's most experienced T20 international paceman for the tri-series, having played seven times.
He has carved out a niche as a strong shorter form bowler, especially in the death overs.
While Tye has played just eight first-class games he has already accumulated 28 one-day and 65 T20 appearances.
Tye took three 20 hat-tricks in 2017 and made his ODI debut last month.
He went wicketless in his first two games, but picked up eight scalps in his last two.
Asked for the reasons why his career had really taken off in the past 12 months, Tye said, "Just keeping it as simple as possible, not thinking about it too much."
Tye came in for some heavy punishment in his early T20 internationals in 2016
"After my first couple of cracks at playing for Australia in the T20 format, I had doubts about myself and my game," he said.
"I came up against some really good oppositions. I probably wasn't as experienced and i was putting a bit too much pressure on myself.".
