"It was like – is this real?"

Darren Pattinson’s journey over the past year has gone from England Test bowler to Victorian club player. The roof tiler by trade, who was sensationally plucked from obscurity to make his Test debut for the land of his birth, England, against South Africa at Headingley, tells the Wisden Cricketer that returning to England for another season, this time as an established county player and main character of a remarkable chapter in English Test history, will not be different.

Excerpts: Are you still astonished by your Test appearance? [Big grin] Yeah, pretty much. It’s sunk in a bit now and looking back, it happened so quick I didn’t get to really enjoy the time. If it ever happened again I’d be a bit better prepared and be able to enjoy it more. What’s your most vivid memory of the Test? Just being told I was opening the bowling [Pattinson replaced the injured Ryan Sidebottom]. It was an hour before the game. I went up to Headingley and I didn’t get up there until 10.30 the night before, so I hadn’t met any of the guys and I went down to breakfast and met a few of the guys I didn’t know and then went straight to the ground. It was a bit of a whirlwind.