Petersen was born and raised in the township of Gelvandale in Port Elizabeth and attended the same state high school as fellow South African Test batsman Ashwell Prince.

He scored his first double hundred in first class cricket (210) against Surrey at the Oval and was named Glamorgan's player of the year.

[5] Petersen could not rejoin Glamorgan as a Kolpak player as he won his place back in the South Africa Test team at the start of 2012.

In July/August 2012 Petersen opened the batting for South Africa in their three match series in England, scoring 182 in the drawn second test at Headingley.

He scored over a thousand runs in the 2016 County Championship and was successful in white ball cricket too including a hundred vs Leicestershire at Grace Road.

[13] After a string of high scores in domestic arena in 2011, he was recalled to South Africa's side for the third Test of the home series against Sri Lanka, replacing the dropped Ashwell Prince.