Barbados offspinner Ashley Nurse hadn't yet played a first-class match when he was called up to the West Indies side for the T20I series against Pakistan in 2011. He went wicketless in the only match he played that series, and again against India later in the year, and it would be more than three years before his next call-up to the national side.

Nurse had better luck on first-class debut. In the 2012-13 Regional Four-Day Competition, he took 45 wickets for Barbados, including 7 for 10 against Windward Islands in the semi-final. He also debuted in the CPL in 2013, taking ten wickets in eight matches for Barbados Tridents, for whom he has since been a regular.

He made his ODI debut in 2016, against Sri Lanka in a triangular series in Zimbabwe, picking up his first three international wickets, and was a regular in West Indies' white-ball sides for the next two and a half years.