A strong fast bowler who hits the bat hard, James Pattinson will be one of Australia's players to watch over the next few years, a fact he demonstrated emphatically by taking a five-for on Test debut. The national selectors certainly thought highly of his talent when they thrust him into a Cricket Australia contract in 2011 and then picked him for the Test tour of Sri Lanka when he had only six first-class matches to his name.

But it was in one-day cricket that he had shown his early potential. In 2009-10 he swung the ball impressively during a match against New South Wales, his 6 for 48 the best figures ever by a Victorian in a domestic one-day game, breaking Graeme Watson's 40-year-old record. The younger brother of Darren Pattinson, who played a Test for England in 2008, James honed his skills against his much older sibling in the backyard of their Melbourne home. Unlike the English-born Darren, James has only an Australian passport, having been born in Victoria after the family migrated. He made ODI debut in Bangladesh in 2011, but it was in his first Test that he showed his potential, taking the first five New Zealand wickets and finishing with 5 for 27 and the Man-of-the-Match award.
Brydon Coverdale