John Pattinson holds aloft a cricket ball not too disimilar from the one his son James used to terrorise New Zealand in the Test match on Sunday. 74626 Picture: Stewart Chambers
By Jarrod Potter
JOHN Pattinson could not be prouder of his two sons, Darren and James, playing international cricket, but that opportunity nearly didn’t happen for James who almost gave up the sport as a 15-year-old.
Pattinson revealed his son was overlooked for a Victorian schoolboys’ team and almost gave up the sport on the back of his omission.
“He was going to give cricket away,” John said. “That was it.
“He wasn’t playing cricket anymore – he had enough of it.”
Thankfully for Australia’s sake, that period of doubt passed for James and he rose through the ranks of Victorian cricket and made his Australian Test match debut this week.
John flew from his house in Officer, where he lives with his son Darren and his wife Elissa, to Brisbane for James’ big match and watched his son plunder the New Zealand batting attack on the fourth day of the Test.
James Pattinson was the scourge of the Blackcaps, dismissing their first five batsmen and in the process, just missing out on snagging a hat-trick.
“It was good – he nearly did get the hat-trick,” John Pattinson said, “only missed by a tiny amount.”
To finish his five-wicket haul, James Pattinson found the edge of New Zealand tailender Doug Bracewell and had the amazing figures of 5/7 off seven overs and finished with 5/27 off 11 overs.
For his bowling achievement, James was named man-of-the-match.
“It was really good and I enjoyed every minute of it,” John said.
