Kurtis Patterson's fall from grace as a Test contender has continued after he was dropped from NSW's struggling Sheffield Shield side for the second time in eight months.
NSW on Monday confirmed their squad for Thursday's Shield clash with Victoria, with Test spinner Nathan Lyon to make his return to red-ball cricket as expected following his Ashes tour calf injury.
After making his competitive return in grade cricket last week and playing in a 50-over match for NSW on Friday, Lyon will continue his comeback at the MCG.
However the bigger surprise in the Blues' 13-man squad is the absence of Patterson.
A Test player as recently as 2019 when he scored a century in his last match for Australia, Patterson has long harboured ambitions of adding to his two games for his country.
But the 30-year-old has now been dropped twice from a desperately out-of-sorts NSW side that has not tasted victory in red-ball cricket since February 2022.
Patterson was initially left out of NSW's team for the final round of last season after a horror summer, relinquishing the captaincy at the same time.
Having been replaced by Moises Henriques as skipper this season, Patterson has recorded scores of 18, 29, 32, 0, four, 10 and 17 across all formats this summer.
That prompted selectors to again axe him from the squad to face Victoria this week, with NSW having now gone 14 Shield games without a win.
Middle-order batsman Blake MacDonald takes Patterson's place in the Blues' squad, as he did in March.
Lyon's selection means the spinner will have up to four red-ball games before Australia's first Test against Pakistan in December.
The spinner took 0-37 from eight overs on his one-day return against South Australia for NSW at Adelaide Oval last Friday.
"I can't wipe the smile off my face. Just over the moon to be back playing competitive cricket," Lyon said at the time.
I feel like my rhythm was good, energy on the ball was good. I actually played my role with what I wanted to do.
"Wickets didn't come but it's a long summer ahead so hopefully there is a lot of those to come.
"It was a tick along the rehab journey, so now it's all systems go."
NSW 13-MAN SQUAD TO FACE VICTORIA: Jackson Bird, Ben Dwarshuis, Jack Edwards, Matthew Gilkes, Chris Green, Ryan Hackney, Moises Henriques (capt), Daniel Hughes, Nathan Lyon, Blake Macdonald, Jack Nisbet, Jason Sangha, Chris Tremain
