For James Pattinson, this Test is personal

AUSTRALIAN fast bowlers don't need a reason to hate England. Just the sight of the crown and three lions crest is sufficient to get the blood boiling.

James Pattinson

AUSTRALIAN fast bowlers don't need a reason to hate England. Just the sight of the crown and three lions crest is sufficient to get the blood boiling. But where James Pattinson is concerned at Trent Bridge today, it's personal.

It was five years ago that the England selectors, faced with a fast bowling fitness crisis, decided to take advantage of the fact that Nottinghamshire-based Victorian Sheffield Shield seamer Darren Pattinson - James' half-brother - had been born in Grimsby by drafting him into the Headingley Test against South Africa.

To say that it was an unexpected call-up would be somewhat of an undersell. Scarcely any of the England players knew him, with introductions being made over breakfast on the first day of the Test. They had been lead to believe he was a swing bowler but were soon to discover he was more a nagging seamer.

Nag is what he did in the first innings, sending down 30 overs to finish with 2-95. Granted they weren't the flashest figures ever recorded on debut, but nor his two wickets to be sneezed at - Hashim Amla and Ashwell Prince.

Of the England bowlers in that match only James Anderson with 3-136 off 44 overs did better. Andy Flintoff's laboured through 40 overs for a solitary wicket at the cost of 77 runs while Stuart Broad sent down 29 overs for a modest 1-114.

In the second innings, Pattinson only got to bowl one delivery which Proteas opener Neil McKenzie pushed for a single to score the winning run. And that was it for him in the Test arena.

Widely and disparagingly dismissed as an Aussie usurper, he was never called upon again by England. Under the circumstances, it is difficult not to sympathise with the Pattinson family's view that Darren was both used and abused.

So now comes the reckoning as Pattinson the Younger, just 23, makes his first Test appearance today against the country that treated his brother so shabbily.

The widespread belief is that if Australia is to score an upset victory in this Ashes series, Pattinson will need to rise to the responsibility of spearheading the pace attack.

On the evidence of his 7-117 match figures against Somerset late last month, the broad-shouldered Victorian is not at all averse to the idea.

His Test figures - 40 wickets in 10 Tests at an impressive 23.38 average - suggest "leader of the pack" status is within his grasp although Mitchell Starc - 30 wickets in nine Tests at 34.03 - is rising fast. The two have played only three Tests together but collectively have taken 24 wickets at 24 and it may well be that Australia is on the verge of finding its best left and right-armed opening attack since the days of Craig McDermott and Bruce Reid.

Asked yesterday how he rated them, England captain Alastair Cook replied with almost studied reserve: "Obviously very highly. They've started their careers very well, their short Test careers and they can bowl quickly and swing the ball which are two good attributes to have as a fast bowler.

"I think that's what's so exciting about this series - there are going to be some hell of good match-ups from both sides, whether we're batting or bowling."

Funny he should mention that because,while it is likely to be with ball in hand that the two youngsters make their biggest impression in this series, both have genuine aspirations to all-rounder status.

Starc top-scored for Australia with 99 in the Third Test against India in Chandigarh in March, cruelly denied his maiden Test century when caught behind off Ishant Sharma, and already his Test batting average is bubbling along nicely at 34.03. Yet, if anything, Pattinson (259 runs at 28.78) looks the more correct batsman. Before this series out, he will have made a decided nuisance of himself as far as England is concerned.

Nothing would make him happier.