Jonte's turn to uphold a fine tradition

If New South Wales' spin-bowling stocks weren't already healthy enough – see Nathan Lyon, Stephen O'Keefe and Arjun Nair, among others – you can throw another name into the mix.

Jonte Ronald Pattison.

Keen observers of Australian domestic and pathways cricket will be familiar with the 19-year-old from NSW Central Coast, despite the fact that Pattison, without a first-class or List A fixture to his name, is far from a household name.

But he does something which none of the spinners mentioned above him here do: he bowls leg-spin.

In Australia particularly, that's a pretty big deal.

From Grimmett to O'Reilly, through to Benaud and Warne and MacGill, the art of leg-spin is a revered one in this country.

But it's also bloody difficult.

"Jonte's good, he's a bit of a livewire around the group and he's a delightful, positive personality – and if you're going to be a wrist spinner, you need to be positive," grins NSW assistant coach and former Test quick Geoff Lawson.

"If you're going to bowl wrist spin, you have to be patient, and you have to learn your lessons out in the middle the hard way.

"He had a very good trial game for us first-up for the season.

"He looks an exciting prospect but wrist spin is a very hard profession – you need to stick at it for a long time, and you certainly need to be an upbeat personality. And he is – he's a good young man around the group."

A one-time medium-pacer who took up leg-spin when a rep coach saw him "mucking around bowling leggies" in the nets one day, Pattison is equally adept with the bat, to the point that he opened for Australia's Under-19s side during their 2015 tour of England.

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"I'd like to think of myself as an allrounder," he told cricket.com.au. "I work on my batting just as much as my bowling.

"But hanging around with guys like Lyon and O'Keefe, I love that.

"It's good fun learning from those blokes, they're always good to train with and have around."

Pattison has relied on the expert technical advice of one-time Test bowler Beau Casson – a left-arm wrist spinner – to hone his craft.

"He's been a great help for me," he said. "I've done a lot of technical stuff with him. I also work with O'Keefe and Lyon on other parts of my game, but when it comes down to the technical side, all of it is with Beau.

"I've always been more of the 'occasional turn, slide on, lbw, bowled' kind of bowler.

"But over the last season I've been working on getting it more up and over, and turning the ball a lot more.

"That's a work in progress so we'll so how it turns out this year."

So far, the signs are promising.

Pattison bowled for New South Wales in a trial match on Queensland's Sunshine Coast last weekend and claimed figures of 4-46.

It was a confidence-building result for the spinner after two years spent battling significant shoulder and knee injuries.

And despite his tender years, the teenager knows the key to his success is consistency, as opposed to being distracted by the perceived magic of leg-spin and the requisite box of tricks that entails.

"At the moment I just want to nail my stock ball – my leg break – and worry about everything else as it comes," he said. 

"For now it's about getting that wicket-taking ball, that stock ball, right.

"My strength has always been my slider, and my wrong'un, so I've got a few (variations), but these days at training I just worry about getting the stock ball right."

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The New South Welshman, who in 2014 was part of a CA XI that took on a touring India side, was also a proud member of an Indigenous side that played a series of matches out of Allan Border Field in Brisbane recently, earning a particularly special honour in the process. 

"We played two games against Queensland and two games against the National Performance Squad," he explains.

"I was lucky enough to captain that side, so I feel pretty privileged about that – it was the first time I'd (captained) in a while, but it was a great experience and good fun, something I was really happy about."

Having battled injuries, opened the batting on a youth Ashes tour of England, captained an Indigenous side, taken on the might of India and spun his way to prominence in his home state, one could hardly blame Pattison if he was unsure of exactly where the next step in his burgeoning career will take him.

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But he's acutely aware of just where he's heading.

"Once I get to game day, I'm just thinking about bowling," he said. "And obviously everyone's looking to play Matador or Shield but just this year I'll be happy to have a good strong season of grade and Second XI cricket, and if the big boys are away (on national duties) I can maybe sneak in for a game if I'm lucky, but we'll see what happens.

"I want to get back to bowling well and taking a lot of wickets, and see where I go from there.

"I'm not too worried about who I'm up against."

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