The beautiful thing about the game of cricket is it doesn’t demand a good physical appearance or physical structure to play the game. Whether a player is tall or short he/she can choose Cricket as their career and achieve massive success in it. The only requirement is cricketing skills.
However there is the advantage of being a tall cricketer, especially in the bowling field as a tall bowler can generate comparatively more bounce because of the high release point of the ball, Also Tall batsmen can generate more physical power due to their big and strong build but it’s not that a short heightened bowler can’t bowl a bounce and batsmen can hit a sixer.
Historically many successful players who weren’t very tall and have a strong or big build still dominated the game. It’s all about coping with your drawbacks and converting your advantages into disadvantages to succeed in Cricket.
Here are the 10 shortest players in cricket:
10. Sunil Gavaskar, India | 5.5 ft
One of the greatest ever to play cricket from the Indian side. Sunil Gavaskar was one of the top batsmen of his generation from the Indian team. He became the first batsman ever to score 10,000 runs in the purest form of the game, Gavaskar was named as one of the “Wisden cricketers of the year” in 1980.
Legend Sunil Gavaskar even after many years of retirement is named among the greatest opening batsman of all time. His batting technique was surreal to watch. Even after being a short heightened player in the era of Top West Indies aggressive bowler, he managed to score soo many runs for the team. This just shows his lionhearted approach towards the game.
9. Tatenda Taibu, Zimbabwe | 5.41 ft
He led Zimbabwe against Sri Lanka in 2005 to become the youngest captain (20y 358d ) to lead a Test side in cricket. Taibu held this record for many years before Rashid Khan broke it by becoming captain of Afghanistan at the age of 20 years 350 days.
Tatenda Taibu made his international debut for Zimbabwe when he was just 18 years old, soon after a couple of years, he was named to be vice-captain of the team under the captain Heath streak. Taibu holds a special place in Zimbabwe cricket as he was the skipper of the side after the Black-armband protest.
The wicketkeeper-batsman played 150 ODIs and scored over 3000 runs at an average of 29.25, he also played 28 test matches scoring over 1500 runs at an average of 30.31. Taibu was a pretty fast runner and a swift wicketkeeper his small height never came between his success in the cricketing world. He retired from cricket aged 29.
Get the latest update on IPL 2021, England vs India 2021, and other cricket news. Like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter and Instagram for more such updates.
8. Kedar Jadhav, India | 5.41 ft
The all-rounder from Maharashtra is a special player his journey has been very inspiring, even after being a comparatively older player he got his permanent slot in the Indian side. He was regularly given spots in the playing XI until he was dropped from the team for series of poor performances.
The Maharashtrian cricketer since making his debut in the year 2014 has been a regular member of the Indian side. Kedar Jadhav with his multi-dimensional skills even booked his ticket in the 2019 World Cup team. Kedar Jadhav represented the national side in 73 ODI and 9 T20i scorings 1389 and 122 runs respectively and picking only 27 ODI wickets.
7. Sachin Tendulkar, India | 5.41 ft
Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is arguably the greatest cricketer of all time. Recently he was even named by the expert 50-member jury as the Greatest Test batsman of all time in the 21st century. From a very young age, he started dominating in cricket everybody knew this child has got everything to become a G.O.A.T which he successfully did.
Across the decades he played he make sure to break every single batting record. The God Of Cricket is the only player with 34000 international runs which still seems like an unbreakable record.
Master blaters’ aura was completely different he was one of the big reasons behind cricket getting popular in India. Sachin was also known as Little Master because of his short height of 5.41 ft. Being short was an advantage for him because it helped him play shots like uppercut and paddle sweep frequently. Tendulkar is a prime example of short height in cricket can stop you from achieving big heights.
6. Gundappa Vishwanath, India | 5.3 ft
He was the OG of Indian cricket he represented India in the 1970s and was a very elegant right-handed middle-order batsman. He provided his services to the nation for 14 long years. Vishy was a very disciplined player even legends like Sunil Gavaskar admired him a lot.
Vishwanath played 90 tests and scored over 6000 runs at an average of over 40. Interestingly he stroked 14 international centuries in his career and all of them came in a winning cause.
5. Mominul Haque, Bangladesh | 5.28 ft
A very talented left-hand batsman from Chittagong made a very impressive debut in cricket scoring 150runs in the first 4 innings that too against Sri Lankan bowler like Rangana Hearth. Haque was the test specialist he is the only Bangladeshi player to score 11 consecutive 50+ scores in Test Cricket.
The southpaw was master against spin he represented the Bangla tigers in 28 ODI scoring runs 557 at an average of 22.3, 44 TESTS stroking 3279 runs at an average of 42.6 and 6 T20I scoring 6 runs at an average of 20.
Get the latest update on IPL 2021, England vs India 2021, and other cricket news. Like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter and Instagram for more such updates.
4. Parthiv Patel, India | 5.25 ft
The supremely talented batsman made his debut for India at the age of 17 making him the youngest wicketkeeper to achieve this milestone. Even after becoming a member of the international team at a very young he wasn’t able to sustain his place on the Indian side due to the presence of legend MS Dhoni. Since Dhoni started wicket-keeping for India no other wicket-keeper got a chance to replace him from the squad.
Gujrat team led by Parthiv Patel won the Ranji title for the first time in 2017. The Southpaw played for Men in blue in 25 Test matches and 38 ODI matches scoring 934 and 736 runs respectively. He also played 2 T20I matches but failed miserably after scoring only 36 runs.
3. Mushfiqur Rahim, Bangladesh | 5.25 ft
The former captain of the Bangladesh team is named among the best cricketers to emerge from the country. He made his debut for Bangladesh in 2005 and has been a regular member of the team for a very long time. He is a very versatile batsman as he can bat at any given position in the squad, Rahim holds the record of scoring two double centuries as a wicket-keeper and he is the only one with this achievement.
Mushfiqur Rahim has played for the Bangla tigers in 387 matches across all three formats including Test, ODI, and T20I scoring 12548 runs at an average of 34.9.
2. Walter Cornford, England | 5 ft
The English cricketer played cricket games when the England Team visited Blackcaps in the 1930s. He was selected as wicketkeeper in the tournament and was involved in 5 catches and 3 stumpings. He was nicknamed Tich because he was barely 5 ft tall. His county in country cricket started in 1921 but it was interrupted when he was called for 2nd World War duties.
Conford scored over 6500 runs in his first-class career and while playing over 496 matches. However, he played only 4 international games scoring only 36 runs at an average of 9.
1. Kruger van Wyk, New Zealand | 4.75 ft
The shortest known cricketer to play the game was kiwi Kruger van Wyk. He was born in South Africa but was unable to get a place in the proteas squad because of the presence of sensational keeper-batsman Mark Boucher. The wicket-keeper batsman started his career with Northern ( now called Titans ) and after playing cricket there for 5 years he moved to New Zealand. He led the team Canterbury Wizards to win a championship title in 2008.
In 2012, Kruger finally got his international call up against his national team; South Africa due to the absence of regular wicket-keeper BJ Watling who was out from the game due to a hip injury.
He scored 341 runs in 9 international contests and With a height of 4.75 ft which makes him the smallest cricketer to have played the game of cricket.
Get the latest update on IPL 2021, England vs India 2021, and other cricket news. Like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter and Instagram for more such updates.