Kurtis Patterson

At the age of 18 years and 206 days he broke the record that was previously held by Barry Shepherd, who scored a century aged 18 years and 241 days in 1955.

Despite this initial success, he was not selected to play for New South Wales for the rest of the season.

Kurtis Robert Patterson (born 5 April 1993) is an Australian cricketer who plays for the New South Wales cricket team in the Sheffield Shield, and the Sydney Sixers in the Big Bash League.

Patterson scored a century on his first-class cricket debut for New South Wales in November 2011, becoming the youngest batsman to score a century in Sheffield Shield cricket.

At the start of the 2011/2012 season, he scored two centuries in the first 4 rounds, which saw him be selected to make his debut for New South Wales.

Patterson made his Sheffield Shield debut for New South Wales against Western Australia in November 2011.

He made an immediate statement by scoring 157 in the first innings and remaining 6 not out in the second innings as New South Wales won the match by 6 wickets.

This performance earned him the player of the match honours.

His century in the first innings saw him become the youngest player to score a century in the Sheffield Shield.

Patterson returned to the New South Wales side during the 2013/2014 season, playing 7 out of 11 games.

Throughout the season he scored a total of 403 runs at an average of 31.00.

He scored 4 half-centuries during the season, including 52 in the final against Western Australia, which was won by New South Wales.

Patterson produced similar statistics during the 2014/2015 season, scoring 372 runs at an average of 28.61.

Patterson's break out year came during the 2015/2016 season.

Play all but one game, he scored a total of 737 runs at an average of 52.64, which included two centuries and four half-centuries.

This made him the highest run-scorer for New South Wales that season and the 6th highest run-scorer in the whole competition.

He was then selected for Australia A to play in a 2016 winter series against South Africa A and India A. In two unofficial test matches against South Africa A, Patterson made scores of 74, 6, 92, and 50 not out.

This made him the highest scorer in the series among both sides.

During this offseason, he also played 6 one day matches for Australia A in a quadrangular series against India A, South Africa A, and Australia's National Performance Squad.

His stand-out performance in the series was a score of 115 against India A in a match that Australia A won by 1 run.

Still aged just 23 and with a first-class batting average of 42.91, Patterson was now in contention for national selection.

Before the start of the 2016/2017 season, former New South Wales and Australian wicketkeeper Brad Haddin said that Patterson could be in contention to play for Australia that summer.

He furthered his case by scoring a century against Queensland in the first round of the 2016/2017 Sheffield Shield season.

After this innings, New South Wales coach Trent Johnston said he believed Patterson was ready for test cricket and deserved a chance at international level.

However, Patterson was not selected for Australia and played out the rest of the season in the Sheffield Shield.

Although he did not score a century for the rest of the season, he still finished the season with 668 runs at an average of 44.53.

This was followed by another strong domestic season in 2017/2018 where he scored 672 runs.

This marked the second time in three years that Patterson was the highest run-scorer for New South Wales.

Despite his consistent run scoring ability, questions began to be asked in the media about his ability to convert his half-centuries into bigger scores.

In January 2019, he made his Test debut for Australia against Sri Lanka, becoming the 457th person to play test cricket for Australia.

He made a century in just his second test match in Canberra, also against Sri Lanka.

He was not selected for the 2019 Ashes series and returned to play domestically in the 2019/2020 season.

He has the highest average of any Test batsman who has lost their wicket at least once.

Kurtis Patterson was born in the Sydney suburb of Hurstville and grew up in Roselands and then Lugarno.

He was born into a family with a strong sporting pedigree.

His mum Dana played volleyball for Australia and his father Brad played cricket for Northern Districts in Sydney's first grade competition.

Patterson went to high school at Christian Brothers in Lewisham.

He played much of his junior cricket with St George Cricket Club.

Aged 13, he played for St George in the AW Green Shield, which is Sydney's premier cricket competition for under 16's. Playing Green Shield again the following year, he scored a total of 442 runs at an average of 88.40.

By the time he was 17, Patterson was playing first grade for St George.