James Pattinson to wield the bat on his return to cricket from injury James Pattinson is set to return from injury. Picture: Wayne Ludbey. JAMES Pattinson will make his return to cricket with Dandeong this weekend, but only as a batsman. The Australian strike bowler last played in the second Test of the away Ashes series earlier this year before he succumbed to a back stress fracture. He is expected to be bowling competitively some time next month. "Once I start back bowling it comes along pretty quickly and I'll hopefully be right maybe in a month's time," Pattinson said. Obviously it was frustrating but I'm still young and hopefully I can just use this time to get bigger and stronger and make sure things like this don't happen again. Teammate Peter Siddle said he was excited by Pattinson's return to the field. "Hopefully he's back with the ball soon and you never know, maybe near the end (of the Ashes series) that he'll be right to go," Siddle said.