NicMaddinson

Nic Maddinson is an attacking left-handed batter who has now twice been a shock inclusion in an Australian Test team, with almost a decade between opportunities.

Maddinson first burst onto the scene in the 2010-11 season when he made his List A and Sheffield shield debuts with NSW within days of each other. At 18 years old he became the youngest NSW player to score a century on first-class debut in his first Sheffield Shield match against South Australia at Adelaide Oval. (Kurtis Patterson would break this record a summer later).

He won his first Steve Waugh Medal as the NSW Blues' Player of the Year in 2015-16, having scored 380 runs at 63.33 in the One-Day Cup with a strike rate of 100.52, with two centuries. He was the only NSW player to feature in all 10 Shield matches that summer, his season highlighted by a superb 112 against Queensland at the SCG, as well as skippering the Blues in six Shield matches following an injury to Moises Henriques. Maddinson peeled off a century for Australia A against India A in Mackay in August 2016, and thrust himself into Test calculations after scoring the only ton of the match in NSW's Shield clash with Victoria in November 2016 on a turning SCG wicket. 

Even so, he was a shock inclusion in an overhaul of Australia's Test XI against South Africa in November 2016 following a nadir against the Proteas in Hobart, making his debut in Adelaide alongside Matthew Renshaw and Peter Handscomb. 

He played three Tests that summer, but struggled for consistency amid the spotlight thereafter, and lost his NSW contract in 2018, sparking a move to Melbourne later that year to try and force his way onto the Vics list through Premier Cricket performances.

He became arguably Victoria's most important batter across his six seasons with the state, scoring 2,785 Sheffield Shield runs at 50.64, including 10 centuries, before moving back to NSW ahead of the 2024-25 season.

Having been sidelined from cricket while he battled testicular cancer in 2025, he returned to play a handful of Big Bash games in early 2026. Back at full health, he was named NSW's Sheffield Shield skipper for 2026-27 under new coach Brad Haddin, then after hitting 126 against Victoria in a One-Day Cup game in late September he was a shock inclusion in Australia's Test squad on their 2026 tour of South Africa. At the time, Maddinson had not played a first-class game for 19 months.