Born in Katherine in the Northern Territory, Short’s family moved to Darwin when he was four. He is of Indigenous Australian descent through his maternal grandmother, whose ancestors are the Mitakoodi people of the Cloncurry River region in Queensland. Short’s parents ran an indoor sports centre in Darwin and he grew up playing indoor cricket before progressing through the Darwin grade cricket leagues. At the age of 16 he commuted between Darwin and Adelaide to play South Australian Grade Cricket and later moved to Perth to have more opportunity to play at State Level.

In 2011 Short made his Domestic debut for Western Australia in the One Day competition where he took 2 wickets with his left arm spin. Short had to wait until 2016-17 to make his First Class debut for Western Australia and in the same year he was signed by the Hobart Hurricanes where his talent finally shone through, scoring a quick fire 61 from just 29 balls. In Big Bash 08 in 2017-18 Short came of age, scoring 578 runs including a score of 122* from 69 balls and winning the player of the tournament award. 2018 also saw Short make his International debut for Australia in T20 cricket in a series against New Zealand. In June 2018 Short made his ODI debut for Australia against England. In the 2018-19 JLT Cup, Short plunder 257 – 11 short of the world record for a List A innings and was also the Big Bash League leading run scorer for a second consecutive season. Short has also played in multiple T20 leagues around the world including the IPL where he represented the Rajasthan Royals, CPL representing the St Lucia Stars and the English T20 Blast playing for Durham. Short is just the sixth indigenous player to represent Australia in International cricket and the first batsman.