5 cricketers who started as bowlers but became successful batters
Cricket is an unpredictable sport, but its unpredictability is not limited to on-field events. In certain cases, some cricketers gave up their primary skill and mastered a secondary one to make a name
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Cricket is a game full of uncertainties and ocan expect bizarre things to happen in the sport. There can be last-minute thrillers, a wicketkeeper may roll his arms for an over or two to get a breakthrough, a lower-order batter could hit the ball out of the park or a part-time bowler could get a hat-trick or a fifer.
In some of the most unanticipated cases, cricketer who started their career as a bowler went on to become successful batters and vice-versa. As time went on, many of these cricketers became somewhat weak in their primary skill. In some rare cases, the player became a master of their ‘secondary skill’ and became well-known throughout the world for the ability which they did not possess during the initial stages of their career.
5 cricketers who started as bowlers but became successful batters
1. Steve Smith
Steve Smith’s journey in international cricket has been on a roller-coaster ride since his debut. Originally drafted into the squad because of his leg break, he found himself batting at No. 3 for the Aussies a few years later. He made his debut for the Australian side in all the three formats in the year 2010. However, his selection to the Australian side raised eyebrows as he was still a raw talent, having an experience of playing domestic cricket only for a couple of years.
He drew a lot of comparisons with Shane Warne earlier in his career as he was used as a leg-spinner who could bat at No. 7 or 8 in the batting line-up. However, the Ashes series in England in 2013 marked a turnaround in Smith’s career. He established himself as a proper batter in that series. His unorthodox batting technique confused the opposition and worked wonders for the Australian team.
Smith has scored 10,477 runs in 212 innings from 119 Test matches at a magnificent average of 56.02, which includes 36 centuries and four double hundreds. The pinnacle of his career came in 2015 when he became the highest-ranked Test batter. In the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015, he became the first batter to score five fifty-plus innings in consecutive matches. As a batter, Smith has cemented his place in the ‘Fab Four’ of the modern generation which includes his contemporaries Virat Kohli, Kane Williamson and Joe Root.