Three sixes off Marco Jansen put Buttler top of the all-time T20 run list
He walked out at Old Trafford 21 runs behind Kieron Pollard. He was past him inside a dozen balls, and 224 matches quicker.
Aug 6, 2026
Jos Buttler walked out at Old Trafford on Wednesday needing 21 runs to be the leading run-scorer in the history of Twenty20 cricket. He got them in the first half of a 20-ball innings, and the record changed hands when he hit the first of three consecutive sixes off Marco Jansen, into the hotel that overlooks the ground.
14,833 and counting
Buttler finished the night unbeaten on 51 with 14,833 T20 runs to his name. Kieron Pollard, who had held the record, stopped at 14,803. Behind them are Chris Gayle on 14,562, Alex Hales on 14,449 and David Warner on 14,284, which tells you how tightly packed the top of this list has become after two decades of the format.
The number worth sitting with is the number of matches. Pollard needed 746 of them, spread across every franchise league that would have him, from 2006 onwards. Buttler has 522. That gap of 224 games is the difference between a career built on volume and one built on being the best player in most rooms he walks into.
Pollard averaged 31.76 across those 746 matches, striking at 151. Buttler’s average sits several runs higher. Neither man was picked to accumulate, and both ended up doing it anyway.
Does the Hundred count?
It is a fair question and the answer, for record-keeping purposes, is yes. The Hundred is 100 balls an innings, bowled in blocks of five rather than six, and the statisticians treat it as the equivalent of 20 five-ball overs. So the runs Buttler scored on Wednesday go into the same column as his IPL runs and his England T20I runs.
Some people will not love that a 100-ball competition delivered the moment. But the alternative is a record book that refuses to count a professional competition played by professional cricketers because the overs are the wrong length, and that seems a worse outcome than the one we have.
The match around the record
Welsh Fire made 155 for 4. Matthew Short scored 71 off 47 and Phil Salt 48, and their opening stand had reached 125 before Josh Tongue broke it, which normally sets up a total nobody chases in a hurry.
Manchester Super Giants chased it in 69 balls. Tim Seifert was unbeaten on 62, Paul Walter made 37, and Buttler came in and settled it. Nine wickets in hand, 31 balls to spare, and a three-match losing run over. The Super Giants had been beaten by MI London, by Trent Rockets and by Sunrisers Leeds before this, and their net run rate had taken most of the damage. One evening like that repairs a lot of it.
The Indian ledger
A decent slice of the record was built in India. Buttler has played 138 IPL matches and made more than 4,600 runs in them, seven seasons of it at Rajasthan Royals. The one Indian fans reach for first is 2022: 863 runs in 17 innings, four hundreds, the Orange Cap, and a Royals side dragged to their first final since 2008. He is at Gujarat Titans now.
He turns 36 in September. He is no longer England’s captain, Harry Brook has that job, but he is still opening the batting for them, and still doing the same job everywhere else. Pollard’s 14,803 stood as a monument to durability. Buttler has passed it while very much mid-career, which means the number worth watching is not 14,833 but whatever it reads when he finally stops.