Peter Matthew Siddle (born 25 November 1984) is an Australian cricketer. He is a specialist right-arm fast-medium bowler who played mostly for Victoria in first-class and List A cricket, then also spent two seasons at Tasmania. In the Big Bash League, he was a foundation member of the Melbourne Stars, although he never played a game for them. He then had a short stint for cross town rivals the Melbourne Renegades, before a significant stint with the Adelaide Strikers. Siddle returned to play for the Renegades in the 2023-24 season. Since the 2024-25 BBL, Siddle has been playing with the Stars. He played Test cricket for Australia over an eight-year period from 2008 to 2016, before being recalled for the Test series against Pakistan in 2018. He retired from international cricket in December 2019. Siddle was part of the winning Australia team in the 2009 ICC Champions Trophy.
Early in Siddle's career he faced multiple injury setbacks, but was able overcome them in 2009 to be named the ICC Emerging Player of the Year. Though injuries continued to plague him throughout his career, he rose to prominence in the 2010–11 Ashes series when he became the ninth Australian to take a Test hat-trick, and the first Australian since Shane Warne in 1994–95 to do so in an Ashes test. He was also the first player in cricket history to take a hat-trick on his birthday. He remained a regular fixture in Australia's team until his bowling pace started to drop in 2014, with Australia's selectors beginning to focus on younger, faster bowlers.
Siddle became a vegan in 2012, subsequently receiving criticism that suggested his diet had a negative effect on his performance, which he disputed. He announced his international retirement on 29 December 2019, effective immediately.
Siddle was born in Traralgon, Victoria and grew up in nearby Morwell in the Gippsland region. Originally a competitive woodchopper, he began playing cricket at the age of 14 for the Latrobe Cricket Club. As a teenager he experienced success, taking 11/47 in a state match at under-17 level. It was in that match that Siddle broke the Victorian state record set by John Scholes.
In 2003, Siddle attended the Australian Cricket Academy and made his first-class debut playing for Victoria against a touring West Indian team at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in November 2005. In 2006, he attended the academy again and was offered a full contract with the Victorian Bushrangers for the 2006–07 season. Shoulder injuries began to hamper Siddle, with a shoulder reconstruction sidelining him for most of the 2006–07 season and further problems interrupting the 2007–08 season. Despite his injury problems, he made himself an important part of Victoria's bowling attack, returning figures of 6/57 in an innings against South Australia, and taking nine wickets in Victoria's Pura Cup final loss to New South Wales. Siddle required a second shoulder reconstruction at the end of the season and, despite missing more than half of the season due to shoulder injuries, took 33 wickets at an average of 15.75 to attract attention from national selectors.
Emerging Player of the Year (2008–2009)
After touring India with Australia A, Siddle was named in the national 15-man squad for the four-Test tour of India on 12 September 2008, as back up to established bowlers Brett Lee, Stuart Clark and Mitchell Johnson. When Clark injured his elbow prior to the second Test, Siddle was selected in the match squad. He made his Test debut at the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium in Mohali on 16 October 2008. His first ball was a bouncer which hit Indian batsman Gautam Gambhir in the head, before taking his maiden Test wicket, that of Sachin Tendulkar. He picked up figures of 3/114 in the first innings, and finished the match with figures of 4/176.
Siddle lost his position in the team when Clark recovered, but regained his position in the team for the first Test against South Africa at the WACA due to Clark's elbow injury recurring. Siddle then solidified his place in the team during Australia's back-to-back series against South Africa. He broke through with three wickets in front of his home crowd at the Melbourne Cricket Ground during the Boxing Day Test Match against the Proteas on his way to figures of four for 81 in the first innings. Siddle backed this performance up in the next Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground, taking five for 59 in South Africa's first innings. His efforts were not enough, however, to prevent Australia from succumbing to a historic home series defeat.
Siddle also gave a fine account of himself on the South African leg of the rubber, in which the Australians triumphed 2–1. Going into the 2009 Ashes series, he had notched up 29 Test wickets at an average of 27.65. The fact that it had come in six Tests against the South Africans and one against India in India, with an economy rate of only 2.57 an over, helped make his record look even more impressive.
In the first Test of the Ashes series against England, Siddle took 2/97 on the first day's play. Siddle then took 5/21 on the first day of the fourth Test, which, to that point, were his career best bowling figures in an innings in Test cricket. After the Ashes, Siddle was named the ICC Emerging Player of the Year for 2009.
Hat-trick and injury problems (2009–2013)
Siddle had a relatively quiet 2009–10 season before a back stress fracture ruled him out of cricket in January 2010. Siddle was able to recover from the injury in time for the 2010–11 Ashes series in Australia the next summer.
In his first Test match back, on 25 November 2010, Siddle's 26th birthday, he became the ninth Australian to take a Test hat-trick, and first cricketer to take a hat-trick on his birthday. Siddle had been controversially brought into the Australian team ahead of Doug Bollinger, despite not having played since January, but he proved doubters wrong early in the match by taking the key wickets of Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood early in England's first innings. When England reached 4/197, Siddle was brought back into the attack and ended up taking the wickets of Alastair Cook and Matt Prior in consecutive balls to be on a hat-trick. Stuart Broad came to the crease for the hat-trick ball, for which Siddle bowled a yorker. Broad attempted to tap the ball down the leg side but missed the ball with his bat, with the ball hitting his foot and was given out lbw. Broad referred the decision to the third umpire, but the wicket was not overturned. Siddle went on to dismiss Graeme Swann for his sixth wicket of the innings, and could have had a seventh when wicket-keeper Brad Haddin dropped James Anderson off Siddle's bowling. He finished with figures of six wickets for only 54 runs, his best-ever in Test match cricket, having bowled 16 overs in total.
Despite a heavy series defeat to England, Siddle had another successful match in the Boxing Day Test Match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, taking 6/75 in an innings defeat. Siddle started to enjoy more consistent success, starring against India the next summer with 23 wickets at an average of 18.65. During the series, he took his 100th Test wicket at the SCG on 3 January 2012, to rise to a career-high seventh in the ICC's Test bowler rankings. In the final match of the series he took impressive innings bowling figures of 5/49 on a batting wicket at the Adelaide Oval, even being on a hat-trick at one stage in the match. For this performance he was named the man of the match.
During Australia's tour of the West Indies in early 2012, Siddle suffered another back injury and had to fly home early from the tour. Siddle had signed for English county club Essex, for the 2012 FriendsLife T20, England's premier Twenty20 competition, but due to his injury he was unable to fulfill his contract with the club. Siddle returned to the Australian Test team for their series against South Africa at the end of 2012. Whilst out injured, he decided to become a vegetarian. The series was very difficult for Siddle because of the very heavy workload he faced. In the first Test of the series at the Gabba, he was forced to bowl 53 overs in a draw. Siddle was forced to bowl for a long time again in the second Test at the Adelaide Oval, he bowled 63.5 overs — the most by any Australian fast bowler in a single Test match in the 21st century — as his workload had been compounded by an injury to teammate James Pattinson mid-match. Australia needed to bowl South Africa out in the final two days of the Test match to avoid a second consecutive draw, with Siddle being the most successful Australian bowler with four wickets. Whilst showing clear signs of exhaustion throughout the final day, Siddle pushed through and took wickets late in the match but was unable to get Australia the win.