Matthew Short: No hype, just efficiency

Matthew Short, 29, has nothing flashy about him or his stroke-making. He's not the kind of technical purist that makes connoisseurs swoon, nor a brute power-hitter in the mold of Pollard, Klaasen, or Stoinis. No tattoos, no loud hairstyles, no cheeky one-liners in press conferences. A late bloomer, he wasn't a child prodigy either. There were no glowing headlines about him in his early years. Neither any ringing endorsement from a former legend to get him on the swimlanes of higher honors. All things considered, there wasn't and there is no hype surrounding Short.

And that stigma can stick. It is difficult to shed it off you. Time and again you can lose out on your place or remain invisible in the pecking order. It is unclear whether Short missed out on the first three games of the San Francisco Unicorns due to an injury that cut short his Champions Trophy in March. But history suggests he has been benched to make way for more spotlighted options in the past. Either way, Short was given a quick SOS to wear the captain's armband and fill in the shoes of the injured Corey Anderson against the TSK on Friday night.

"Shane Watson, our coach, does a bit of commentary over in the big bash where I have been leading the Adelaide Strikers. So he's probably looked from that side of things. I've only worked with him this time last year with the Unicorns. The conversations I have with him, and what he's sort of told me he sees me as a calming influence on the group, someone that sort of rides the waves. So I think keeping calm under pressure is probably the main attribute of a leader. So, if we see balls like here, flying all over the park, keeping your head up and keeping the bowlers up and about, I think I can help out in that way," Short said on his elevation to captaincy.

And Short didn't disappoint. After being slaughtered by a Faf du Plessis special, the Unicorns were in real danger of being batted out of the game at the half-way mark with the TSK score reading 160 for 1 in 15 overs. The stage was set for TSK to plunder the death overs with all their batting might that included the likes Marcus Stoinis and Daryl Mitchell in the dugout. However, Short had the Unicorns surrender the momentum towards them by closing out the last five overs at a little less than 10-an-over.

Minutes later, Short and Allen came out all guns blazing in the most spectacular fashion to notch 83 in the powerplay and propelled the Unicorns miles ahead of the asking rate. Short and Allen posted blistering half centuries and Unicorns eventually got home without a quiver in the 17th over. The onslaught silenced a near-packed Grand Prairie Stadium, which had been buzzing with the quintessential yellow whistles echoing loud up until then.

Short quietly made his mark for the Unicorns last season, averaging a healthy 34 while scoring 170 runs at a brisk strike rate of 180 across just five innings. And now, thrust back into the side with the added weight of captaincy, he's delivered on day one. With MatthewShort, it's always about hyper-efficiency over hype.