The pocket-sized dynamites: 10 shortest cricketers of all time

5) Parthiv Patel

Height - 5 feet 3 inches

When Parthiv Patel led India on to the stage at an awards ceremony in London in 2002, many people mistook him as the team’s mascot. Making his Test debut at a tender age of 17, Patel was tiny even for his age. But he did reasonably well on his Test debut, scoring an unbeaten 19 and helping India salvage a draw against England at Trent Bridge.

He performed splendidly in the home series against West Indies in 2002-03, but later due to a slump in form and emergence of other keepers like MS Dhoni and Dinesh Karthik, he was sidelined from India’s ODI and Test squads. But a run of good scores in domestic cricket and ‘A’ tours ensured that Patel earned a call-up to India’s Test squad in 2008.