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\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s quite sunk in yet to be honest,\u201d Patterson declared after the match.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were about ten minutes more rain away from not even getting on the field. It\u2019s wild how the day panned out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people who were allowed a phone in (the dressing rooms) were looking at that radar like you wouldn\u2019t believe and trying to move the clouds with their hands. You get lucky sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The triumph comes after Patterson struck consecutive hundreds during the Blues\u2019 previous One-Day Cup matches against Tasmania and South Australia, performances that helped New South Wales qualify for the tournament decider.<\/p>\n
The 32-year-old finished this season\u2019s One-Day Cup as the leading run-scorer with 565 runs at 113.00, including three centuries.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019ve just found a nice rhythm to my one-day batting that I probably haven\u2019t had in the past,\u201d Patterson told Fox Cricket\u2019s Domesticated this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always been somewhat consistent in getting starts, but never really gone on and scored big hundreds, so it\u2019s been nice to rectify that this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think feeling relaxed, being still and having confidence in my game has helped the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Blues qualified for the One-Day Cup final in extraordinary circumstances, needing to chase a 275-run target within 40 overs to secure a bonus-point win against Tasmania in Hobart last month.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Patterson\u2019s 68-ball century, which included six fours and three sixes, NSW only needed 31 overs to get the job done.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was quite frantic at the break,\u201d Patterson recalled.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had analysts back in Sydney figuring out the (required) net run rate and everyone throwing out their opinion before we actually knew what the number was, and eventually before the openers went out, we got it down to 40 overs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew we had to maximise the Powerplay. We knew that was going to be our best chance to win the game. And we went out there and executed, which is always the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patterson guides NSW to ODI Cup win | 01:30<\/p>\n
Patterson made his international debut in 2019, playing two Tests against Sri Lanka and scoring a century at Manuka Oval during the series finale. However, the left-hander was dropped ahead of Australia\u2019s following Test assignment to accommodate Steve Smith\u2019s return from the Cape Town ball-tampering ban.<\/p>\n
He currently averages 144.00 in Tests, an all-time record.<\/p>\n
Asked if he was better placed to tackle the challenges of Test cricket than he was seven years ago, Patterson responded: \u201cI\u2019m playing my best cricket at the moment, there\u2019s no doubt about that.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack when I was selected (in 2019), I was in one of those rare purple patches you get in your career when I was coming off four hundreds in the previous month, so I was certainly picked at the right time, and it was nice to get that Test hundred under my belt early on.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019m more mature. I\u2019ve got a more complete game now, and I\u2019ve got the confidence that I\u2019ve done it in the past when I was selected.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following an underwhelming 2022\/23 summer with the bat, Patterson was dropped from the NSW side towards the end of 2023, returning to grade cricket with St George. He fought his way back into the Blues starting XI towards the start of the 2024\/25 and hasn\u2019t looked back, since accumulating 1297 Sheffield Shield runs at 44.72 and earning Australia A selection.<\/p>\n
Patterson also boasts the highest individual score of this season\u2019s Sheffield Shield, an unbeaten 173 against reigning champions South Australia at the SCG.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe line in the sand was drawn for me when I was dropped, and I needed that line to be drawn,\u201d Patterson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes it\u2019s really hard to do it when you\u2019re constantly trying to figure things out and grind through Shield cricket. It\u2019s not the place to figure out areas of your game that need to be figured out.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to step away, and for me, it was playing club cricket, getting back into the rhythm of scoring hundreds with my club side, and as simple as it sounds, just figure out the things that I was doing poorly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were a few little bad habits that had crept into my game and I was able to rectify those and felt like I came back with a really clean head, a bit of a clean slate and some new-found confidence in my game.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s been nice to get some runs. I would have liked a few more, particularly in this Shield season, but I think that\u2019s the game. You\u2019re never satisfied as a batter in this sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
“Still Standing’: Shipperd on NSW win | 02:30<\/p>\n
Patterson\u2019s career-best form comes as Labuschagne struggles in the red-ball format, with the Queenslander scoring 398 runs at 22.11 at first-class level since the end of October, managing just three fifties across 18 knocks during that period. The Australian Test No. 3 hasn\u2019t scored a Test hundred in nearly three years.<\/p>\n
With veteran batter Usman Khawaja recently announcing his international retirement and opener Jake Weatherald fighting to keep his spot in the national side, there could be vacancies in the Australian Test top-order next summer.<\/p>\n
And Patterson wants to throw his hat in the ring.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe motivation\u2019s there,\u201d Patterson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was part of that process 18 months ago when I had some time to think through why I was playing and what my motivations were, and doing everything I can to get back in that Australian side was a big one.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an exciting time for any first-class batters out there at the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of Test cricket coming up over the next 18 months. Obviously Usman\u2019s retired, so there\u2019s a spot there, and like always I think it\u2019s scoring runs at the right time. Scoring runs this back-end of the season when there\u2019s finals on, the business-end of the season is always a good thing to be doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll be looking forward to taking that opportunity if it does come.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Blues, having failed to qualify for the Sheffield Shield final, will play their last match of the season this weekend, hosting Western Australia for a four-day contest at Silverwater\u2019s Cricket Central. It will be Greg Shipperd\u2019s final game as NSW coach, with Patterson set to lead the side again in the absence of injured captain Jack Edwards.<\/p>\n
Despite Patterson\u2019s white-ball excellence, his most recent first-class scores have been 33, 17, 12 and 7. He knows this week\u2019s Sheffield Shield contest in Sydney will be his last chance to send a message to the national selectors before the winter break.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got to put runs on the board, I\u2019ve got to score more red-ball runs, that\u2019s for sure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The match gets underway on Saturday at 10.30am AEDT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kurtis Patterson is playing the best cricket of his life at the moment, with his title-winning purple patch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-538897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}