T20 World Cup: Facts, Records, Special Achievements and more…….

When the local 50-over domestic tournament in England ended its sponsorship, the ECB was desperate for another limited over competition to fill its place. The ECB’s marketing manager Stuart Robertson then proposed a 20-over side tournament to boost the game’s popularity among the younger generation in response to declining crowds and less sponsorship. On 13 June 2003, the first T20 matches were played between English counties for the Twenty20 Cup.

• Within 20 months of the inaugural T20 tournament in England, the first international in this format was played between hosts New Zealand and Australia on 17 February 2005 in Auckland. The latter won by 44 runs! And within 30 months of the first T20 International, the first World T20 Championship was held in September 2007 in South Africa.
• The first national T20 tournament, then known as the Inter-State Twenty20 competition, was organized by the BCCI from 3 April 2007. was organized by Tamil Nadu were early winners defeating Punjab by 2 wickets in the final at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai on the 21st. April 2007.
• Rohit Sharma is the first Indian to register a three-figure score in a T20 match. He scored an unbeaten 101 off 45 balls for Mumbai against Gujarat at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai on 4 April 2007. It was incidentally the only century recorded during the inaugural Inter-State T20 competition in 2007.
• Shreyas Iyer’s 147 for Mumbai against Sikkim at Indore on 21 February 2019 is the highest individual score by an Indian batsman in the T20 format.
• Australian Ian Harvey has the honor of registering the first three-figure score in T20 cricket. He achieved the feat on 23 June 2003 while playing for Gloucestershire against Warwickshire at Edgbaston, Birmingham. His unbeaten 100 came in 50 balls!
• Chris Gayle of West Indies has scored 22 centuries in his T20 career. He is followed by three others (all Australians) Michael Klinger, David Warner and Aaron Finch – with only eight hundreds!
• Chris Gayle has also hit the most fours in his T20 career – 2188 (1056 sixes + 1132 fours), meaning 4.80 fours per innings or one four every 4.60 balls.
  Chris Gayle has scored 10864 runs (6336 runs in sixes and 4528 runs in fours) in his T20 career. His runs in boundaries account for almost 75% of his total career runs (14562) in his T20 career.
• Chris Gayle is the only batsman to hit more than 50 sixes in the World T20 tournament. He has hit 63 sixes. Yuvraj Singh has hit only 33 sixes. Among the current players, Rohit Sharma and David Warner have hit 31 sixes each.
• Mahela Jayawardene of Sri Lanka is the only batsman to score more than 1000 career runs (1016) in WT20 cricket. India’s Rohit Sharma (847) and Virat Kohli (845) are the most run-scoring batsmen among the current players.
• Himachal Pradesh’s medium fast bowler Nischal Gaur holds the distinction of becoming the first Indian bowler to take five wickets in a T20 match. He took 5 wickets for 28 runs in his 4 overs against Delhi on 3 April 2007 at the Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi.
• L. Balaji has the distinction of being the first Indian bowler to take a hat-trick in T20 cricket. He achieved the feat in an IPL match for Chennai Super Kings against Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) in Chennai on 10 May 2008.
• Sunil Narine of West Indies has the honor of giving most maiden overs in T20 career. Since making his debut in this format in 2011, he has made 27 maidens in 433 matches so far. Among Indians, Praveen Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah have the most – 19 maidens each!
• Australia achieved the distinction of winning the inaugural international match in all formats – beating England by 45 runs in Melbourne on 19 March 1877 (in Test), beating England by five wickets in Melbourne on 5 January 1971 (ODI) and New Zealand Defeated by 44 runs at Auckland on 17 February 2005 (T20s).
• MS Dhoni holds the unique distinction of captaining every match (33 matches) India have played in the first six editions of the WT20 from 2007 to 2016. This is the most captaincy by any player in WT20 history (next best is 18. Matches by West Indian Darren Sammy).
• MS Dhoni is the only player in T20 cricket history to captain different teams in more than 250 matches. West Indies all-rounder Darren Sammy is the next best with 208 matches, while MSD has led the teams with 306 matches! MSD has led a record 179 chances in games won.
• Suresh Raina is the only player in T20 cricket history to play more than 150 matches for one team. For nearly ten years from 19 April 2008 to 10 April 2018, Raina appeared in 158 consecutive matches for Chennai Super Kings in IPL and Champions League competitions.
• India’s Rohit Sharma and Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan, who have played in all the previous seven editions of the T20 World Cup since 2007, will be the first players to play in eight editions of the tournament.