The cleanest thrill in cricket is a T20 hundred done right: a fierce first over, the mid-innings stall and reset, the last burst that turns good into unforgettable. When it lands, a century in twenty overs feels like someone has bent time. The format does not owe anyone a hundred, which is exactly why those who stack them command a special aura. In the record book for most T20 centuries, one name stands apart. Chris Gayle built a skyscraper while the rest of the world was sketching plans. He remains the benchmark for most hundreds in T20 cricket across all competitions.
Scope, definitions, and how to read this page
The term most T20 centuries has been misused so often that many fans end up comparing unlike-for-unlike. This guide keeps the scopes clean:
- T20 (all T20 cricket): Any official Twenty20 match — internationals and domestic/franchise leagues combined.
- T20I: International matches only, country vs country.
- Leagues: IPL, PSL, BBL, CPL, BPL, LPL, SA20, ILT20, and other sanctioned domestic T20 competitions.
Methodology and data hygiene
- Sources: ESPNcricinfo records/Statsguru, Cricbuzz archives, ICC match classification.
- Inclusion: Only officially recognized T20 matches. Warm‑ups, friendlies, and exhibition games are excluded.
- Counting rule: Every individual score of 100 or more in a single T20 innings is a “century.”
- Freshness: Updated after every international window and major league match days. Totals can change quickly. Use the leaders snapshot for the headline records and rely on per-scope sections for context.
Table — What exactly counts as “T20” vs “T20I” vs “League”
| Scope | Includes | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| All T20 | T20I + IPL + PSL + BBL + CPL + BPL + LPL + SA20 + ILT20 + other sanctioned T20s | All‑format career tallies, most hundreds in T20 overall |
| T20I | Only international T20 matches between ICC member nations | National records, most T20I centuries by a player or country |
| Leagues | Domestic/franchise competitions (e.g., IPL, PSL, BBL) | Most centuries in IPL, fastest hundred in PSL, highest league scores |
Leaders snapshot (for instant answers)
- Most hundreds in T20 cricket (all T20): Chris Gayle sits on top with a landmark total that remains the gold standard for the format’s history.
- Most T20I centuries: Rohit Sharma and Glenn Maxwell share the all‑time lead in men’s T20 internationals.
- Most centuries in IPL: Virat Kohli holds the record for most IPL centuries.
- Fastest century in any T20: Chris Gayle reached three figures in 30 balls during an IPL classic.
- Fastest century in T20I: Kushal Malla’s 34‑ball avalanche set the mark in men’s internationals.
- First T20I century: Chris Gayle authored the first T20I hundred in the opening chapter of international Twenty20.
- IPL’s first century: Brendon McCullum’s blitz set the tone on the league’s very first night.
The all‑T20 leaderboard: the castle Gayle built, and the hunters behind him
Chris Gayle’s reign over most T20 centuries
When charting most T20 centuries across every competition, you begin with a player who treated T20 like a universe rather than a format. Gayle’s record is made of dozens of different stories and conditions: early explosion at the top, brutal control through the middle overs, and the finish that left scoreboards looking misprinted. He made high‑ceiling venues his playground — Chinnaswamy’s altitude and arc, Wankhede’s carry, the small boxes around the Caribbean. His method never pretended to be anything but direct: he guarded his stumps, punished length, refused to chase the ball wide, and then hammered anything into his zones. The power came clean; the base was a quiet head and a strong front side.
When you look at the count, his lead still dwarfs the field. It’s not just the raw total; it’s how he scattered those hundreds across leagues and continents, against bowling attacks of every variety. No one else in men’s T20 has matched the mixture of volume and spread.
The active chasers: different styles, same ambition
- Babar Azam: The textbook of anchor‑to‑accelerate. Babar’s T20 hundreds often follow a graceful script — high control in the first third, patient consolidation against spin, then sweeping the line late once the field loosens and pace returns. His league hundreds largely come from opening or batting at No. 3, and he has added T20I tons that mirror his domestic blueprint. The conversation around Babar in T20 always toggles between intent and endgame. The centuries answer the intent question better than any debate can.
- Virat Kohli: The method merchant. Virat’s T20 hundreds are built, not blasted. He extracts value from singles like a craftsman and keeps the ball on a string square of the wicket. When the surface allows, he unfurls the lofted drives over extra cover and mid‑wicket with that familiar whip. In league play he produced purple patches where he stacked centuries in bunches, proving that a high‑class ODI narrative can scale to T20 with a few well‑timed gear shifts.
- Jos Buttler: Range hitting with cold eyes. Buttler’s T20 hundreds often come with signature notes — late shaping of the bat face, deep-in-the-crease extension, the half‑shuffle that opens up every short‑side angle. He is the rare player who can score a three‑figure T20 at almost any ground type because he manipulates length more than he chases line.
- Glenn Maxwell: Chaos with a plan. Maxwell has more than one T20I hundred where the chase looked done until he interfered with physics. He reverses, laps, and holds shape against high pace, choosing audacity early and trusting his hands. In domestic leagues he has authored monstrous totals including an all‑time high in one competition, and his T20I hundreds put him level at the peak of the international table.
- Suryakumar Yadav: Geometry as weapon. SKY’s T20I hundreds introduced a new argument in the “most t20 centuries” race — you can be unorthodox and still classical in outcome. He scores behind square on both sides, hammers straight, and rarely leaves a ball unchallenged in his zones. His league tons carry the same signature: rhythmic footwork and fearless access to the third tier.
- KL Rahul: The elegance of minimal movement. Rahul’s T20 hundreds come with the sound of the ball meeting the middle. When he commits to tempo, he reaches three figures without obvious risk, leaning on timing in the V and a switch to power once he’s through the middle. He’s one of the best in league cricket at playing the long innings without dropping below a par strike rate.
- David Warner: The hit‑and‑run left‑hander. Warner’s hundreds often come with a powerplay pearl necklace — a string of fours pierced with the occasional flat six. When he hits the first ball flush, it’s a long night for the bowler. He adapted across formats while preserving the first‑ten‑over menace that makes a T20 ton possible.
- Old‑school domestic pillars: Names like Michael Klinger and Luke Wright mattered in the early estate of T20 hundreds. They accumulated in domestic circuits when the calendar was still finding its balance, building a foundation for what “volume” might look like in franchise cricket.
The truth is that the rest of the field is condensed into a moving cluster, while Gayle’s number sits in clean air. Among the active group, the pressure points are clear: fitness across dense league calendars, international workloads, and the inevitability of pace data evolving to attack new scoring arcs. The chase is on, but the hill remains steep.
Most T20I centuries: the high wire at international level
T20Is compress opportunity. National teams play a fraction of the matches a league pro can log, the sample is small, and bowling attacks arrive with analysis drilled tight. That is why the top of the20I chart tells its own story.
Rohit Sharma and Glenn Maxwell share the lead. Their routes to the same summit feel like essays on T20 technique. Rohit’s hundreds often lean on an immaculate base and the lofted drive across the line; he can hit the same bowler over long‑off and cow corner in back‑to‑back balls with only a tiny tweak in head position. Maxwell’s best T20I hundreds look borderline impossible until you note the mathematics: he shrinks the bowler’s margin with premeditated movement and then owns the slower ball.
Just beneath them, Suryakumar Yadav turned T20 batting into an art installation — fanned wrists, inside‑out over cover, scoops with the seam still visible. Babar Azam and Colin Munro carry weight in this space as well: Babar with that relentless control of tempo, Munro with early‑overs violence that settles matches before they breathe.
Patterns in T20I hundreds are different from league centuries. International pitches trend fairer, the ball often keeps its shape a touch longer, and analysts aim matchups to stop an in‑form opener from seeing more than twenty deliveries in rhythm. That is why deep finishing skill — the ability to go 50 to 100 with fewer dots than the average — correlates so strongly with the T20I leader list.
Most centuries in IPL: the league that sculpted modern T20 hundreds
When fans say most hundreds in T20, they often mean most centuries in IPL. The league has become a book on its own — altitude games in Bengaluru, high‑octane chases in Mumbai, and tactical scrums in Chennai. Over time, the IPL taught batters to build T20 hundreds like innings with multiple mini‑targets: survive four overs at premium strike, push spin into gaps with calculated risk, and keep three overs in reserve to overshoot par.
Virat Kohli stands as the IPL’s record holder for centuries. He built his total across bursts — phases where he didn’t just score runs, he bent the arc of the season. Jos Buttler lurks in that space where raw quality translates into repeatable results; he is the only overseas batter who has consistently walked toward Kohli’s mark with sustained threat. Chris Gayle’s set of IPL hundreds provided the early legend for the league — bat in orbit, bowlers looking strangely small.
Other repeated names on the IPL centuries list include KL Rahul for elegant control, Shubman Gill with a recent leap in ceiling, David Warner as pace-maker, and the occasional explosive knock from players who live between roles — the day everything clicks and a flexible middle-order hitter gets promoted, or an opener stays on when conditions are perfect.
Leagues beyond IPL: PSL, BBL, CPL, BPL, LPL, SA20, ILT20
No two T20 leagues are the same, and century patterns reflect local flavour.
- PSL: A bowler’s league by reputation, which makes every hundred feel hard-earned. Straight hitting in Lahore and Karachi has been the safest currency. Babar Azam’s league hundreds come with a near‑textbook read on local lengths; Jason Roy’s entries in the list showed how English white‑ball technique can cut through in Pakistan.
- BBL: Wide squares, big boundaries, the Power Surge, and nightly wind patterns. Glenn Maxwell owns one of the colossal league knocks here, a study in relentless intent once he’s seen twenty balls. Surface pace varies across cities, which makes adaptive shot maps essential for repeat hundreds.
- CPL: Caribbean wickets and breeze angles produce distinct winning lines. Slower balls and cutters dominate late, so T20 hundreds in the CPL often hinge on powerplay dominance and selective targetting of the tenth through fourteenth overs before the sponge sets in.
- BPL and LPL: Century scoring is erratic because pitches can oscillate between batting-friendly and tacky; the best knocks often start with restraint and end with a sprint.
- SA20 and ILT20: High‑skill bowling environments punctuated by several batting heartlands. The very best players treat these leagues as chances to stack cross‑conditions hundreds — proof that their method travels.
Sizing the advantage: opener versus middle order
The most centuries in T20 skew heavily to players opening or batting one‑down. The math is obvious: more balls available, more time to ride out a slow patch, more scope to reach a second wind. That said, the format has begun to allow middle‑order hundreds in rare windows: early wickets that bring a No. 4 in during the powerplay, or a bowling attack forced to defend a short side for three overs in a row. Maxwell, SKY, and a handful of others have sniffed out those windows with ruthless clarity.
Conversion rate and the 50‑to‑100 challenge
Half-centuries rain in T20; hundreds are scarce. The best centurions have one thing in common: when they pass fifty, they spike their boundary rate without sacrificing singles. You can track this with a very simple filter: balls 41‑60 and balls 61‑80 (if used) should maintain or exceed a strike rate level set in the powerplay. The top practitioners also find three “free” overs — a matchup they like, a short boundary, or an unsettled bowler — to salt away thirty runs without fuss. The result is a conversion rate that beats the base rate of the format by a mile.
Conditions that breed T20 centuries
- Altitude/Carry: High‑carry venues make mishits travel and reward straight hitting, adding a few marginal sixes that keep innings alive.
- Boundary geometry: Short straight boundaries favour classical lofted drives; short square boundaries upgrade pulls and slogs aimed toward cow corner.
- Surface pace: True pace early helps openers access their hitting arcs. Mildly abrasive surfaces assist high‑class batters who roll the wrists with authority.
- Dew: Dew turns slower balls into slides and lowers risk on lofted drives, especially later.
- Ball condition: Some competitions keep the ball better than others. A hard ball maintained through ten or twelve overs adds value to timing-heavy players.
- Matchups and data: The era of left-arm angle into the knee roll and the off-speed, wide lines to yorker length. The batters who reach hundreds in spite of this are solving a live puzzle in real time.
Table — Venues where centuries keep showing up (indicative, not exhaustive)
| Venue | Batting profile that thrives |
|---|---|
| Bengaluru (high carry, short straight-to-square) | lofted drivers, range hitters who love back‑of‑length |
| Mumbai (fast outfield, true pitch) | high‑tempo openers, late‑over finishers with straight power |
| Sharjah (short square-to-straight) | boundary pickers with sweep/pull mastery |
| Dubai/Abu Dhabi (modern surfaces, minimal seam for long stretches) | classical timers who add loft late |
| Kingston/Port of Spain (varied) | adaptable hitters who reset against cutters |
| Lahore/Karachi (true early, variable late) | anchors who accelerate after thirty balls |
Notable streaks, rarities, and near‑impossibles
- Back‑to‑back hundreds: A white‑ball Everest. It happens rarely because teams adjust angles, hold back matchups, and often sacrifice pace-on rhythm the next night.
- Hundreds in a losing cause: Cruel to witness, revealing to study. They usually come from chases where one end is locked while wickets fall at the other, or when a first‑innings hundred isn’t insulated by late acceleration from the partner.
- Knockout hundreds: The maximum pressure test, where bowlers save their smartest plans and captains squeeze the powerplay with catching men in unusual places. The few who have done it joined the folklore instantly.
Fastest T20 centuries and why they matter to the volume race
Speed does not guarantee volume, but speed creates more shots at volume. The fastest T20 century remains Chris Gayle’s 30‑ball insanity, a one‑man breach of protocol. In T20 internationals, Kushal Malla’s 34‑ball hundred reset expectations for how quickly a player can get there at national level.
These extremes matter because they teach two lessons: the value of starting big (a twenty‑ball forty simplifies the math later), and the advantage of over‑achieving during one particular spell of overs rather than distributing risk evenly. Most reliable centurions identify those spells ahead of time, almost like bowlers map out wicket balls.
Opposition and role splits
- By opposition: Teams with deep pace batteries punish calculation errors early; teams with a single strike bowler who fronts three overs in the powerplay can be exploited if the batter survives the initial burst. Hundreds often come against sides that miss their death lengths.
- By venue: Home surfaces amplify comfort; touring hundreds are worth extra respect, especially if they arrive in unfamiliar wind patterns or on slower decks.
- By batting position: Most T20 centuries as an opener is a predictable record; that said, No. 3 is a century‑producing role in its own right because it combines openers’ ball count with a slight advantage against spin before pace returns.
- In chases vs first innings: Chasing hundreds usually feature purer risk management; first‑innings hundreds sometimes arrive with a late gale once the batting side realizes a par score is suddenly beatable by thirty or forty runs.
Country and team tallies for T20I hundreds
National volume maps onto match volume and batting depth. India and Australia sit near the top for T20I centuries, as do teams that frontload power through their top three in most series. England, Pakistan, New Zealand, South Africa, and the West Indies all house players who can roll a cold hundred on any given week. Lower‑volume T20I sides have seen spikes thanks to standout batters who play with clarity and freedom; in this format, one player having a night can redraw the map in an instant.
The anatomy of a T20 hundred, ball by ball
The batter’s diary on a big night often reads like this:
- Balls 1–10: Find rhythm. Identify release shot. Set awareness of the short side and the bowler who can be milked later.
- Balls 11–20: Touch the throttle. Guarantee singles against spin, play with soft hands behind point. Cash two overs if the matchup is favourable.
- Balls 21–40: This is the investment stretch. Keep risk just under the red line, manipulate angles, and collect boundary options. Don’t fall into dot clusters; three dots kill a hundred faster than one failed big shot.
- Balls 41–60: The kill. If wickets are in hand, launch. If not, use calculated violence — target the weakest over, not the most tempting ball. Respect the cutter. Read the fielders’ cues; they betray the captain’s plan.
Coaches design this plan as a skeleton, then players improvise around it. The best centurions hold a calm head while everything else looks frantic.
Why “all T20” and “T20I” must stay separate
Mixing most T20 centuries with most T20I centuries confuses the conversation. All‑T20 is a volume exercise across leagues with varied pitch and boundary profiles. T20I is a narrower track with higher average bowling quality and fewer fixtures. The leader in one is not necessarily the leader in the other, and that’s okay. Treat them as distinct marathons. If you want to understand a player, look at both: how many hundreds in the wild of leagues, and how many for country, under lights and national flags.
Levers that shift the record over time
- Schedule density: More leagues, more innings, more shots at three figures. This is the clearest driver behind the upward trend in total T20 hundreds.
- Strategy creep: Wides to yorkers, cutters into the pitch, and profession‑grade fielding have raised the bar batters must clear for a hundred today compared with the early days.
- Bat technology: Marginal gains in bat profiles mean mistimed shots don’t die as easily. The bat has always been part of the story; modern balance and pick‑up turned more good nights into great ones.
- Analyst warfare: Bowling plans adjust to a centurion’s “favorite over.” The best adapt, add a slower‑sweep option, and tune their loft to a slightly squarer angle or straighter arc depending on what the opposition tries.
The women’s game and the shape of T20 hundreds
Women’s T20 cricket has its own rhythm and benchmarks. Hundreds appear less frequently because of a different scoring profile and fewer fixtures in some competitions, but the quality of set play and smart boundary hitting is climbing fast. As calendars expand and domestic leagues mature, expect the women’s list of most T20 centuries to find new leaders and fresh patterns of where and how those tons arrive.
Case studies: four players, four routes to three figures
- Chris Gayle: The archetype. The first ten balls were his truth serum. If he timed two, bowlers got conservative, which fed him width or arc. He played the short straight boundary with almost mean patience, waiting for a pace-on miss. Death overs against Gayle were triage; most of his T20 hundreds had the look of an innings that used perfect information at the right time.
- Rohit Sharma: The aesthete who weaponized elegance. He could add thirty in five balls without losing posture, which made him the rare opener who didn’t need a manic start to score a hundred. His hand‑eye refused the urge to snatch, so the ball kept meeting the bat clean through entire innings.
- Virat Kohli: The master of lanes. He often looked like he was scoring in lanes invisible to others — push‑drives between cover and extra, wide-of-midwicket whips that never rose above head height. Once he saw thirty balls, he rarely lost his shape. A Kohli hundred is typically a lesson in how to manage risk without letting the run rate slip.
- Suryakumar Yadav: The curator of angles. SKY’s hundreds zig where others zag. He’ll reverse‑lap a hard length, then stand tall and hammer the same bowler straight. Bowlers go wide of the crease to close his third‑man scoop, so he opens the bat face late and still beats them. No one else right now looks more likely to add to both T20I and league hundreds with equal flair.
A mini‑catalogue of record‑adjacent notes
- Highest individual score in T20: Chris Gayle’s 175* remains the towering one‑off that encapsulates peak T20 audacity.
- Most T20 centuries in a calendar cycle: The best seasons belong to a handful of batters who got hot early and stayed there through league and international slots. Hot streaks tend to be cluster‑friendly because confidence changes shot selection in the margins.
- Youngest and oldest centurions: The format has seen teenagers write headlines and thirty‑somethings find second acts as specialists. T20 is a meritocracy for handspeed and decision speed more than anything.
- Most T20 centuries in losing cause: It’s a short, painful list. It usually speaks to one end being welded shut while the other end leaked wickets or to a defense that underestimated how much the dew would erase on a given night.
The value of filters: opposition, venue, position, and result
Understanding the record for most T20 centuries is easier if you slice it:
- By league: IPL centuries reward high‑tempo acceleration; PSL centuries often favor patient mid‑innings expansion; BBL centuries are an exercise in range and stamina on big squares.
- By year or season (internally tracked without public date spam): Spikes often sync with rule changes, new ball batches, or fresh pitch cycles.
- By position: Openers rule. No. 3 is an under‑appreciated century slot when the toss goes your way. No. 4 hundreds happen in chasing scenarios where the first wicket falls during the fielding restrictions.
- By result: Hundreds in wins reflect clean finishing. Hundreds in losses reflect, more often than not, a lack of support or poor death overs with the ball.
How captains and coaches enable T20 hundreds
The best think about the hundred before the toss. They plan to give an in‑form opener an extra over through a short side; they hold back the matchup that their best player hates until after the set batter moves past fifty. They leave a hitter up the order an extra over when the feel is good, even if the card suggests a pinch-hitter. A T20 hundred is as much a team product as a personal feat — better running, sharp calling, and the right partner rotating strike at the correct moments.
Small but useful table — leaders and signature notes (concise, selective)
| Player | Signature note |
|---|---|
| Chris Gayle | Most T20 centuries overall; fastest in all T20; highest individual T20 score. |
| Rohit Sharma | Joint‑most T20I centuries; template of clean loft and field reading. |
| Glenn Maxwell | Joint‑most T20I hundreds; one of the largest league scores; unmatched improvisation. |
| Virat Kohli | Most centuries in IPL; master of controlled accelerations. |
| Jos Buttler | Multiple IPL hundreds; range‑hitting clinics, especially in big chases. |
| Babar Azam | Prolific across PSL and T20Is; anchor‑to‑accelerate masterclass. |
| Suryakumar Yadav | Geometry‑first shotmaking; rapid T20I century rate and league impact. |
Technical sidebar: what a Manhattan tells you about a hundred
- Even towers: Suggest a batter who guarded against dot clusters and took what the field gave. Rarely seen in power hitters’ innings, common in textbook knocks.
- Sawtooth early, skyline late: The classic T20 hundred that builds through adversity and cashes out when the ball softens for the finisher.
- Skyline early, plateau late: Risky. Often ends inside ninety. When it clicks, it becomes a violent hundred that sets the game on fire before the halfway mark.
Answering the search intent cleanly, in human terms
- Most T20 centuries across all T20: Chris Gayle holds the record and continues to define the ceiling for men’s Twenty20 hundreds.
- Most T20I centuries: Rohit Sharma and Glenn Maxwell stand joint‑first in men’s internationals.
- Most centuries in IPL: Virat Kohli leads the league charts with the definitive tally.
- Most hundreds in T20 domestic leagues: Spread across competitions, with IPL producing the densest cluster and PSL and BBL delivering high‑quality spikes.
This is the backbone; everything else — fastest hundreds, youngest centurions, league specialists — sits around these pillars.
A practical way to personalize the record: player‑first lenses
If you follow a specific player, break down their T20 hundreds by:
- League vs international
- Opposition pace type (right‑arm pace, left‑arm pace, offspin, legspin)
- Venue and boundary geometry
- Batting position
- Result (win/loss)
You will see that most batters who collect T20 hundreds have one or two superpowers: a go‑to scoring lane, or an uncanny sense of when to switch from 130 to 160 strike rate without a visible risk spike. Identify that, and you can predict the next hundred more reliably than by staring at raw averages.
The conversation about “most T20 centuries” will keep moving
Every new league, every tactical wrinkle, every mini‑revolution in bat speed or power training nudges the leaderboard. What won’t change is the skill cocktail required to reach three figures in a sprint format: decision speed, ball‑striking, stamina, and an ability to ignore the noise when you’re ninety‑something and a legspinner has just nailed two dots. The players mentioned here have cracked that code more than once. A few look ready to crack it many more times.
Closing reflections
T20 is cricket’s tightrope. The best balance on it without looking down, pausing just long enough to absorb the moment before accelerating again. That is what a T20 hundred really feels like. It has pace and patience, calculation and impulse, common sense and audacity, all woven into an innings that fits inside a short evening. The headline record — most T20 centuries — is not just a list of big numbers. It’s a map of how the modern game actually works. Chris Gayle’s peak shows what the frontier looked like when it was first drawn. Rohit Sharma and Glenn Maxwell at the top of the T20I column tell you how international detail and fearless intent now coexist. Virat Kohli’s place atop the IPL chart shows what method can do across long league cycles. Behind them, a line of batters with different shapes and rhythms, all chasing history in fast‑forward.
As more matches fill the schedule and analysis gets sharper, the list will breathe; it will reward new kinds of genius. For now, the foundations are clear. Gayle’s tower stands tallest across all T20. Rohit and Maxwell share the international crown. Kohli rules the IPL. Everyone else is writing their own way to three figures, one unforgettable night at a time.
