Here is the List of Top Ten Shortest Cricketing Careers:
Every player would dream to play for his country. Some end up with very long careers, some end up on satisfactory note. But the category which almost considered as unluckiest will end up with Shortest Career. So then what is the Shortest International Cricketing Career? It is of 3 hours. Yes the Shortest international cricketing career’s span is of just 3 hours almost 1/6th of a day.
1. Jelte Schoonheim (Netherlands) :
The unluckiest international player of all, the one with the shortest career is the Dutch player Schoonheim, whose Twenty20 international debut against Ireland in Belfast in August 2008 was rained off. But the captains did manage to toss up, which means the match counts in the records, so Schoonheim does have an official appearance to his name. All in all his international career lasted about three hours – the time between the toss and the decision to call the match off.
2. Roy Park (Australia) :
When Charles Macartney missed the second Ashes Test in 1920-21, in Melbourne, his replacement was a local man, Dr. Roy Park. He went in at No. 3, but was bowled first ball. Australia won by an innings, so Park didn’t bat again and in fact he never won another cap, as his medical career took up more of his time afterwards. A funny incident during in it was that the Park’s wife watched him go out to bat at the MCG but dropped her knitting at the vital moment, while bending down to pick it up she missed her husband’s entire international career at the crease.
3. Greg Loveridge (New Zealand) :
A promising leg spinner who played for New Zealand‘s Central Districts, Loveridge went out to bat for the first time in a Test against Zimbabwe in Hamilton in January 1996, on his 21st birthday. He celebrated the big day with a four off Henry Olonga, but the next delivery broke his knuckle, forcing him out of the Test. He didn’t even get a chance to bowl or field. And Loveridge never played another Test, so the active part of his Test career lasted for just 22 balls.
4. Jack MacBryan (England) :
A batsman who had won a gold medal for hockey at the 1920 Olympics, MacBryan got a Test chance when Sir Jack Hobbs was rested for the fourth Test of the home series against South Africa in 1924. But the match and MacBryan’s Test career fell due to foul of the weather where only half a day’s play was possible, and MacBryan didn’t bat, bowl or take a catch. Hobbs returned for the final Test, in front of his adoring Oval crowd, and the unlucky MacBryan never got another chance.
5. Joseph McMaster (England) :
The Irish-born Old Harrovian McMaster had the shortest first-class career of any Test player. That’s because he only ever played one game, a match later designated as Test, in South Africa in 1888-89 – and that was all over in less than two days. McMaster made a duck, didn’t bowl, and didn’t have to do too much fielding either, as South Africa were bundled out for 47 and 43.
6. Clarence Wimble (South Africa) :
Another man with a stunningly among the shortest Test career was the splendidly named Transvaal player Wimble, whose one cap for South Africa came against England in Cape Town in March 1892. England won by an innings early on the third day, and weren’t held up for long by Wimble, who bagged a pair.
7. Bransby Copper and 8. Ned Gregory (Australia) :
The Australian pair of Cooper and Gregory share the record for the earliest end to a Test career: both of them appeared in the very first Test of all, against England in Melbourne, but never played again… and so were finished with Test cricket by March 19, 1877. Cooper celebrated his 33rd birthday on the first day of Test cricket – but Gregory’s connection with it lasted rather longer, as his son Sydney who played 58 Tests for Australia between 1890 and 1912, interestingly he feature in the 9th place of Longest Careers.
9. Anwar Ali (Pakistan) :
The shortest possible international career these days would comprise just a solitary Twenty20 international, these players can undoubtedly appear again but whose time is running out is the Pakistan seamer Ali, whose one taste of international cricket came against Zimbabwe at King City in Canada more than three years ago, in October 2008. Anwar bowled two overs which went for 19, didn’t bat and hasn’t had good news from the selectors since, even though Pakistan won that game.
10. David Townsend (England) :
Townsend, whose father Charles also played for England – scored four centuries for Oxford University, and opened the batting in three of the four Tests in the West Indies in 1934-35, top-scoring with 36 as England crashed to defeat in the first Test in Port-of-Spain. But David returned to his native Durham after graduating, to work as a solicitor, and remains the last man ever to play for England without appearing in county cricket.
