Highest individual score in T20 cricket: Lhuan-dre Pretorius’s 188 not out breaks Chris Gayle’s record

Lhuan-dre Pretorius made 188 not out for Titans on 2 October 2026, the highest individual score in T20 cricket, ending Chris Gayle’s 13-year hold on the record with 175 not out. The full top 20.

Lhuan-dre Pretorius’s 188 not out is the highest individual score in T20 cricket. The 20-year-old made it for Titans against Knights in the CSA T20 Challenge at Bloemfontein on 2 October 2026, from 79 balls with 15 fours and 13 sixes, and it ended a record Chris Gayle had held since April 2013.

Gayle’s 175 not out for Royal Challengers Bangalore against Pune Warriors at the Chinnaswamy on 23 April 2013 is now second. He hit 13 fours and 17 sixes from 66 balls, a strike rate of 265.15. It stood as the record for 13 years and five months.

Almost everything below the top has moved too. Eight of the current top 20 have been made since April 2022, and two of the top ten belong to associate-nation batters — Rwanda and Austria, both from 2026.

Highest individual score in T20 cricket

All senior men’s T20 cricket, internationals and domestic, ranked by runs and complete to 4 October 2026. Source: ESPNcricinfo.

Rank	Player	Team	Opponent	Runs	Balls	4s	6s	Date
1	Lhuan-dre Pretorius	Titans	Knights	188*	79	15	13	2 Oct 2026
2	Chris Gayle	Royal Challengers Bangalore	Pune Warriors	175*	66	13	17	23 Apr 2013
3	Aaron Finch	Australia	Zimbabwe	172	76	16	10	3 Jul 2018
4	Hamza Khan	Rwanda	Ivory Coast	164*	65	9	15	24 May 2026
5	Karanbir Singh	Austria	Hungary	164	57	18	12	28 Jun 2026
6	Hamilton Masakadza	Mountaineers	Mashonaland Eagles	162*	71	14	11	11 Feb 2016
7	Hazratullah Zazai	Afghanistan	Ireland	162*	62	11	16	23 Feb 2019
8	Sahibzada Farhan	Peshawar	Quetta	162*	72	14	11	21 Mar 2025
9	Dewald Brevis	Titans	Knights	162	57	13	13	31 Oct 2022
10	Adam Lyth	Yorkshire	Northamptonshire	161	73	20	7	17 Aug 2017
11	Mohammad Ihsan	Spain	Croatia	160	63	5	17	7 Dec 2025
12	Brendon McCullum	Kolkata Knight Riders	Royal Challengers Bangalore	158*	73	10	13	18 Apr 2008
13	Brendon McCullum	Warwickshire	Derbyshire	158*	64	13	11	3 Jul 2015
14	Aaron Finch	Australia	England	156	63	11	14	29 Aug 2013
15	Mitchell Owen	Washington Freedom	MI New York	155	68	11	13	20 Jun 2026
16	Glenn Maxwell	Melbourne Stars	Hobart Hurricanes	154*	64	22	4	19 Jan 2022
17	Luke Wright	Sussex	Essex	153*	66	12	11	25 Jul 2014
18	Graham Napier	Essex	Sussex	152*	58	10	16	24 Jun 2008
19	KL Rahul	Delhi Capitals	Punjab Kings	152*	67	16	9	25 Apr 2026
20	Chris Gayle	Somerset	Kent	151*	62	10	15	31 May 2015

Lhuan-dre Pretorius, 188 not out

Pretorius, a left-hander, carried Titans to 267 for 3 in their 20 overs and was still there at the end of the innings. The previous best by a South African was also made in this fixture: Dewald Brevis hit 162 from 57 balls for Titans against Knights at Potchefstroom in October 2022, and Pretorius beat it by 26 runs.

He finished 12 short of 200. No batter has made a double hundred in a recognised T20 match. The T20 double centuries that do get quoted, Rahkeem Cornwall’s 205 not out in 2022 among them, came in club or minor-league games that are not counted in the records.

Chris Gayle, 175 not out

Gayle came in inside the first over and finished on 175 from 66 balls out of Bangalore’s 263 for 5. Pune Warriors finished on 133 for 9 and lost by 130 runs. The 30-ball hundred inside that innings remains the fastest in Indian Premier League history — Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s 35 balls in 2025 is the closest anyone has come since. His 17 sixes were the T20 record at the time and are now fourth: Finn Allen hit 19 for the San Francisco Unicorns against Washington Freedom in June 2025, and Gayle himself hit 18 for Rangpur Riders in 2017.

One line about that innings does need updating, though, and most versions of this list have not done it. Gayle’s 30 balls is no longer the fastest hundred in T20 cricket. Four batters have gone quicker:

Sahil Chauhan, 27 balls — Estonia v Cyprus at Episkopi, 2024.
Urvil Patel, 28 balls — Gujarat v Tripura at Indore, 2024.
Abhishek Sharma, 28 balls — Punjab v Meghalaya, 2024.
Muhammad Fahad, 29 balls — Turkey v Bulgaria at Sofia, 2025.

Two of the four are Indians, and both did it in the same domestic season.

The highest score in a T20 international

Aaron Finch’s 172 against Zimbabwe at Harare in July 2018 is still the T20I record, and third on the all-T20 list. He also holds the third-highest T20I score, 156 against England at Southampton in 2013, which was the record until he broke it himself.

What has changed is everything between them. The second and third highest T20I scores are now both from 2026 and both from associate cricket: Hamza Khan’s 164 not out for Rwanda against the Ivory Coast in Gaborone in May, and Karanbir Singh’s 164 for Austria against Hungary in June, made from 57 balls with 18 fours and 12 sixes. Our page on the highest individual score in T20I cricket has the international list in full.

The highest T20 score by an Indian

KL Rahul, 152 not out from 67 balls for Delhi Capitals against Punjab Kings at the Kotla on 25 April 2026, with 16 fours and nine sixes. It is the highest score by an India batter in any T20 match, and the third-highest in IPL history behind Gayle’s 175 not out and Brendon McCullum’s 158 not out from the very first match of the competition in 2008.

Next among Indians is Tilak Varma’s 151 for Hyderabad against Meghalaya in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy in November 2024, from 67 balls with 14 fours and 10 sixes. No India batter has reached 150 in a T20 international: the national record there is Abhishek Sharma’s 135 from 54 balls against England at the Wankhede in February 2025.

The highest score in women’s T20 cricket

Lucia Taylor’s 169 for Argentina against Chile at Buenos Aires on 13 October 2023. She faced 84 balls and the innings has a detail worth stopping on: 27 fours and not a single six.

That broke the record of 161 not out by Bahrain’s Deepika Rasangika against Saudi Arabia at Al Amerat in March 2022, which most lists still name. Rasangika’s innings had 31 fours and no sixes. Alyssa Healy’s 148 not out for Australia against Sri Lanka in 2019 is the highest score in a women’s T20 international by a full-member batter — every score above it belongs to an associate side.

Two Chelmsford innings, in opposite directions

The oddest pair in the table above: Graham Napier made 152 not out for Essex against Sussex at Chelmsford in 2008, and Luke Wright made 153 not out for Sussex against Essex at Chelmsford in 2014. Same ground, same two counties, one run apart, six years and reversed shirts.

Common questions

What is the highest individual score in T20 cricket? Lhuan-dre Pretorius’s 188 not out from 79 balls for Titans against Knights in the CSA T20 Challenge on 2 October 2026. It broke Chris Gayle’s record of 175 not out, made for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the 2013 IPL.

What is the highest score in a T20 international? Aaron Finch’s 172 for Australia against Zimbabwe at Harare in 2018.

Who has the highest T20 score by an Indian? KL Rahul, 152 not out for Delhi Capitals against Punjab Kings in April 2026.

What is the fastest hundred in T20 cricket? Sahil Chauhan’s, off 27 balls for Estonia against Cyprus in 2024. Gayle’s 30-ball hundred is still the IPL record.

What is the highest score in women’s T20 cricket? Lucia Taylor’s 169 for Argentina against Chile in October 2023.

See also our lists of the most sixes in T20 cricket and the highest strike rate in T20 cricket.

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Featured photo: MANJUNATH KIRAN / AFP