Most Runs in T20 World Cup: Kohli 1,292 and Farhan's 383

Virat Kohli has the most runs in T20 World Cup history with 1,292. The full all-time list, the four men past 1,000, and Sahibzada Farhan’s record 383 from 2026.

Virat Kohli has scored the most runs in the men’s T20 World Cup: 1,292 in 35 matches at an average of 58.72, with 15 fifties and a strike rate of 128.81. He last played the tournament in 2024, and the 2026 edition did not go near his total, so the record should stand a while yet.

What 2026 did change is everything underneath. Sahibzada Farhan broke the single-edition record that had stood since 2014, and six of the twelve biggest individual tournament hauls now come from that one month in India and Sri Lanka. Most versions of this list still in circulation were compiled before any of that happened.

Most runs in T20 World Cup history

All figures are for the men’s tournament proper, as at 20 August 2026.

Player	Span	Mat	Runs	HS	Ave	SR	50s
Virat Kohli (IND)	2012-2024	35	1292	89*	58.72	128.81	15
Rohit Sharma (IND)	2007-2024	47	1220	92	34.85	133.04	12
Jos Buttler (ENG)	2012-2026	43	1100	101*	34.37	144.16	5
Mahela Jayawardene (SL)	2007-2014	31	1016	100	39.07	134.74	6
David Warner (AUS)	2009-2024	41	984	89*	25.89	134.24	8
Chris Gayle (WI)	2007-2021	33	965	117	34.46	142.75	7
Tillakaratne Dilshan (SL)	2007-2016	35	897	96*	30.93	124.06	6
Shakib Al Hasan (BAN)	2007-2024	43	853	84	23.05	120.14	4
Quinton de Kock (SA)	2014-2026	35	834	74	24.52	134.51	5
Kane Williamson (NZ)	2012-2024	29	727	85	31.60	112.53	3
Suryakumar Yadav (IND)	2021-2026	27	722	84*	36.10	150.73	6
AB de Villiers (SA)	2007-2016	30	717	79*	29.87	143.40	5

Only three of the top twelve were still playing at the 2026 tournament: Buttler, Quinton de Kock and Suryakumar Yadav. The other nine are finished with the competition, which is why the top of this list moves so slowly.

Cricket batsman raising his bat after reaching a fifty under floodlights

The 1,000-run club now has four members

For a long time it had nobody in it at all. Mahela Jayawardene went into the 2014 tournament on 858 and finished it on 1,016, the first man past the mark in the tournament’s first five editions. He then retired from the format and stayed alone there for eight years.

Kohli joined him during the 2022 edition in Australia, going from 845 to 1,141 across six innings. Then 2024 added two more. Rohit Sharma started that tournament on 963 and made 257, the best return of his nine appearances; Jos Buttler started it on 799 and made 214. Buttler is the only one of the four to have played since, adding 87 in 2026 to finish on 1,100.

Player	Runs	Edition they passed 1,000
Virat Kohli	1292	2022
Rohit Sharma	1220	2024
Jos Buttler	1100	2024
Mahela Jayawardene	1016	2014

A fifth member is not close. The nearest anyone who played in 2026 has got is Quinton de Kock, ninth on the all-time list and 166 runs short; Suryakumar Yadav needs 278.

Kohli’s 1,292 without a single hundred

The most striking thing about the record is what is missing from it. Kohli has never made a T20 World Cup century. Neither has Rohit Sharma. The two leading run-scorers in the tournament’s history have 2,512 runs between them and not one hundred.

What Kohli has instead is 15 fifties, three more than anyone else has managed, and an average in a category of its own. Among the 44 players who have made 500 or more T20 World Cup runs, his 58.72 is the highest, and the next best is Kevin Pietersen’s 44.61. That gap of 14 runs an innings is wider than the gap between second on the same list and twentieth.

His six tournaments read 185 in 2012, 319 in 2014, 273 in 2016, 68 in 2021, 296 in 2022 and 151 in 2024. That adds to 1,292, and it shows how much of the record was built in three good tournaments rather than spread evenly across six. His highest score is still the unbeaten 89 from 47 balls against West Indies in the 2016 semi-final at the Wankhede.

Most runs in a single T20 World Cup

Kohli’s 319 from 2014 held this record for twelve years, and in that time only one innings tally had come close to it — Tillakaratne Dilshan’s 317 in 2009, two runs short. Pakistan’s Sahibzada Farhan did not just edge past it in 2026: he finished on 383 from six innings, 64 clear.

Player	Edition	Inns	Runs	Ave	SR
Sahibzada Farhan (PAK)	2026	6	383	76.60	160.25
Tim Seifert (NZ)	2026	8	326	46.57	166.32
Sanju Samson (IND)	2026	5	321	80.25	199.37
Virat Kohli (IND)	2014	6	319	106.33	129.14
Tillakaratne Dilshan (SL)	2009	7	317	52.83	144.74
Ishan Kishan (IND)	2026	9	317	35.22	193.29
Babar Azam (PAK)	2021	6	303	60.60	126.25
Mahela Jayawardene (SL)	2010	6	302	60.40	159.78
Finn Allen (NZ)	2026	8	298	49.66	200.00
Virat Kohli (IND)	2022	6	296	98.66	136.40
Tamim Iqbal (BAN)	2016	6	295	73.75	142.51
Brian Bennett (ZIM)	2026	6	292	146.00	134.56

Six of those twelve rows are from 2026 alone. The nine editions between 2007 and 2024 produced the other six between them, which is the clearest single measure of how much the scoring moved at that tournament. Our page on the highest score in a T20 World Cup shows the same thing from the team side: seven of the ten biggest totals were made in that month.

Cricket bat, gloves, helmet and a white ball on the outfield of an empty floodlit stadium

The leading run-scorer in every T20 World Cup

Edition	Player	Inns	Runs	HS	Ave
2007	Matthew Hayden (AUS)	6	265	73*	88.33
2009	Tillakaratne Dilshan (SL)	7	317	96*	52.83
2010	Mahela Jayawardene (SL)	6	302	100	60.40
2012	Shane Watson (AUS)	6	249	72	49.80
2014	Virat Kohli (IND)	6	319	77	106.33
2016	Tamim Iqbal (BAN)	6	295	103*	73.75
2021	Babar Azam (PAK)	6	303	70	60.60
2022	Virat Kohli (IND)	6	296	82*	98.66
2024	Rahmanullah Gurbaz (AFG)	8	281	80	35.12
2026	Sahibzada Farhan (PAK)	6	383	100*	76.60

Ten editions, ten rows. That is the check worth running on any version of this table you come across: the T20 World Cup has been played ten times, in 2007, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2021, 2022, 2024 and 2026. A list that stops at nine has dropped the most recent one, and most of them do.

Kohli is the only man to have topped the run charts twice, in 2014 and 2022. And only two of the ten leading scorers were playing for a side that reached the final that year — Dilshan in 2009 and Kohli in 2014. Piling up runs at this tournament and going home early are not mutually exclusive.

What Farhan did in 2026, and the record he actually holds

Farhan’s 383 came in six innings across seven matches, at 76.60 with a strike rate of 160.25. It contained two hundreds: an unbeaten 100 from 58 balls against Namibia at the SSC in Colombo on 18 February, and 100 from 60 balls against Sri Lanka at Pallekele ten days later.

Only two men have made two T20 World Cup hundreds at all. The other is Chris Gayle, whose 117 against South Africa came in the very first edition in 2007 and whose 100 not out against England came at the Wankhede in 2016 — two different tournaments, nine years apart. Farhan made both of his inside eleven days, which makes him the only player to score two centuries in a single T20 World Cup. That is the sharper version of the record and it is worth stating carefully, because several accounts of the 2026 tournament put it the other way round and credit Gayle with having done it first.

The 2026 edition was heavy on centuries generally. Canada’s Yuvraj Samra made 110 against New Zealand at Chepauk at the age of 19, the youngest man to score a World Cup century and the first by a batter from an Associate nation at a T20 World Cup. Jacob Bethell made 105 from 48 balls for England in the semi-final India still won by seven runs. Pathum Nissanka made an unbeaten 100 for Sri Lanka against Australia. And Finn Allen made 100 not out from 33 balls against South Africa at Eden Gardens, a strike rate of 303.03 and the fastest hundred the tournament has seen.

Where India’s batters sit

India have two of the top three run-scorers in the tournament’s history and neither played in 2026: Kohli’s last T20 World Cup was 2024 and so was Rohit Sharma’s. Suryakumar Yadav is eleventh on 722 from 27 matches, and his strike rate of 150.73 is the highest in that top twelve.

The 2026 tournament was carried by a younger group. Sanju Samson made 321 in five innings at a strike rate of 199.37 and was named Player of the Tournament; Ishan Kishan made 317 at 193.29. Both sit inside the all-time top six for a single edition. India won the trophy for a third time, which you can follow through our T20 World Cup winners list.

Common questions about the most runs in T20 World Cup

Who has scored the most runs in T20 World Cup history? Virat Kohli, with 1,292 runs in 35 matches at an average of 58.72. He is 72 clear of Rohit Sharma and has not played the tournament since 2024.

Who has scored the most runs in a single T20 World Cup? Sahibzada Farhan of Pakistan, with 383 in the 2026 edition. He passed Kohli’s 319 from 2014, a mark that had stood for twelve years.

How many players have scored 1,000 runs in T20 World Cups? Four: Kohli (1,292), Rohit Sharma (1,220), Jos Buttler (1,100) and Mahela Jayawardene (1,016).

Has Virat Kohli scored a century in the T20 World Cup? No. His highest score is 89 not out against West Indies in the 2016 semi-final. He holds the run record with 15 fifties and no hundreds.

Who has scored the most centuries in the T20 World Cup? Chris Gayle and Sahibzada Farhan, with two each. Farhan is the only one to have made both in the same tournament.

Who scored the fastest hundred in a T20 World Cup? Finn Allen, off 33 balls for New Zealand against South Africa at Eden Gardens on 4 March 2026.

More T20 World Cup records

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Photo credit: Brenton EDWARDS / AFP

Most runs in T20 World Cup: Kohli’s 1,292 leads a 1,000-run club that now has four