There are players who can hit boundaries. And there are those who go over the ropes! Here are the top 12 batsmen who have the most sixes in cricket to their name…
“Cricket is a batsman’s game” is the most common saying in cricket. And the modern-day game lives up to the expectations, just as much as bowlers fear Chris Gayle! Batsmen, save a few like Cheteshwar Pujara and Joe Root, have gotten more aggressive and more risk-taking than ever. The new rules too have a massive role to play in this. Two new balls, fielding restrictions, smaller boundaries and heavy bats have all helped batsmen to become more attacking-minded than earlier. The rise in popularity of T20I in the last decade has taken matters to a whole new level.
Talking of boundaries, one thing is for sure: no one hates to see the ball sailing into the stands unless you are the unfortunate bowler. Here is a list of batsmen who have hit the most sixes in cricket, across all formats.
12. Ross Taylor
A lynchpin of his side, this veteran Kiwi is one of the most dependable batsmen in any form of the game. From being a someone who can launch on the opposition during the death overs to building long partnerships or holding on to an end, this man does it all. The Kiwi batsman has 256 sixes in 468 innings to his name. Most of these have come from ODIs (140) and T20s (65). He also boasts of a healthy strike rate of 132 in T20s and ability to score fast in tests too, he has to have a good share of sixes in his kitty.
11. Adam Gilchrist
Openers have the opportunity to bat and get more time to settle down than any one else. But when we talk of someone like Adam Gilchrist, he really did not need that. “Gilly” could just set off from the first ball and his high strike rates of 97 in ODIs and 82 in tests are testaments to that.
He hit sixes with nonchalance and as a result, features in this list of most sixes in cricket with 262 in 429 innings. Coming in at No.7, he was quickest run-scorer of the team and seeing him so low down the list is weird. There is hardly any bowler who could dominate him with ease, getting him out was something else….
10. Sachin Tendulkar
What more can we say about him? There would be hardly any batting record list where he would not feature,if not on top. Perceived more as a run-accumulating machine rather than someone with a very aggressive approach except a period in the late 90s, the “Master Blaster” does feature in this list due to his 24-year long career, really uncommon in this competitive age. He has hit 264 sixes in an immense 782 innings! along with the highest of 4000+ boundaries. If not for his absence from T20s, he could have had a few more.
9. Martin Guptill
The second Kiwi on this list, Martin Guptill is a batsman-par-excellence in the shorter formats. Elegant yet so aggressive, Guptill is a dominant force in ODI and T20s and is also the highest scorer in home conditions in the shortest format. A brilliant exponent of the short-arm pull and straight drive, his ability to hit the big ones are often overlooked. Till recent times, he was the highest scorer in T20s (2436), and that cannot be without some huge sixes. He has managed to hit 304 in just 345 innings with an average of 0.88 sixes per innings but, more importantly, he plays majorly in only 2 formats. That is commendable.
8. Eoin Morgan
The England captain is one of the best exponents of the modern-day game. With a repertoire of shots including the best reverse sweep in the business, he is a force to reckon with when in form. The fiery captain who made England the No.1 ODI team in 2019, has hit 313 sixes in just 325 innings with an average 0.9 sixes per innings! He came to the team with the tag of “finisher” and played some breathtakingly aggressive knocks to cement his place.
Now, playing a more advanced role he has become the most capped player (233*) and highest-scoring ODI player with 7348 runs for England but that has not taken away his ability to hit some huge maximums. Rather, it seems to have bettered with time as seen in his hundred against Afghanistan where he hit 17 sixes.
7. AB De Villiers
If you see a bowler desperate and looking for options, more often than not, the batsman facing would be AB De Villiers. Irrespective of the format, AB has terrorised bowlers and has hit them for 328 sixes. The scorer of the fastest 50, 100 and 150 in ODIs, ABD’s biggest strength is his ability to hit anywhere in the ground with the huge range of shots he can play, including the reverse sweep, the scoop and the switch-hit. What is even more astonishing he can literally take the life out of a bowler by hitting sixes with such shots!
6. Sanath Jayasurya
He was not called the “Matara-mauler” for no reason. The legendary opener from Sri Lanka is probably the most attack-minded players from the island nation, and it does not look to change soon. The pioneer of using the Powerplay restrictions in the initial overs, Jayasurya has hit 352 sixes in 651 innings. Starting out as a bowler, he became one of the best batsmen of all time and just dominated bowling attacks with ease. Jayasurya is known for his many whirlwind innings, and his most famous is the 17-ball-50 against Pakistan in Singapore. More of a player, dependent on hand-eye coordination than feet movement, Jayasurya did have his bad times but when in the form he just swatted balls like anything.
5. MS Dhoni
If Sachin Tendulkar is “God of Cricket“, MS Dhoni has to be the same in terms of finishing. Well, only Lance Klusener and Michael Bevan can be up for the same status. A cricketer with an extremely cool brain and sharp captaincy in the shorter formats, Dhoni is by far the most influential cricketer of his generation. And talking of his position in the most sixes in cricket list, Dhoni has hit 359 of them in 526 innings. This could have been much higher, but he had to hold himself so many times to bail the team out. The best memories of Dhoni has definitely been his numerous helicopter shots, the most famous being the one which won India the World Cup in 2011.
4. Brendon McCullum
Kiwis seem to be really great hitters of the red cherry! The third in this list and the most devastating of all of them, Brendon McCullum has to be among the most powerful cricketers. Built and stocky, with the one of the quickest pair of arms in cricket, McCullum’s ability to bludgeon sixes is unquestionable, smashing 398 in 474 innings. A born leader, an excellent fielder and an aggressive batting specialist, McCullum never cared about the format, piled on runs at a brisk pace and made multiple records. This includes the first batsman to score 2 T20 tons, fastest test century off just 54 balls and also piled 158* against RCB in IPL 2008 which continues to be the second-highest runs scored by an individual in a T20 match.
3. Rohit Sharma
If lazy elegance has a name, Rohit Sharma it will be. But don’t be fooled by this attitude as the “Hitman” is one of the sweetest hitters of the cricket ball. To be precise, he has hit 404 sixes in only 360 innings! That’s an average of over 1.1 six per innings!
Sharma is the only player to score 3 ODI double tons, the most being the 264* he hit against Sri Lanka. Nine of his 404 sixes were hit during this match itself. But that isn’t his highest in a single inning. The highest figure is, in fact, 16 sixes with AB De Villiers and Chris Gayle, before being surpassed by Eoin Morgan in 2019.
2. Shahid Afridi
When six-hitting is a job, few did it better than Shahid Afridi. He was a com Although his batting numbers have strikingly deteriorated, his count of sixes is still way above others, and he has recorded 476 across all formats. Of these, 351 of them were in ODIs, making him the one to hit most sixes in ODIs.
“Boom Boom” was most well-known for his big-hitting; he still maintains the highest ODI strike rate at 114 and highest test strike rate at 86. Afridi held the record for the fastest ODI century when he smashed a hundred of 37 balls for a long time before Corey Anderson and AB De Villiers broke it.
1. Chris Gayle
When it comes to hitting sixes, there is only one “Universal Boss” who does it cleanly – Chris Gayle. One of most feared batsman in the world, he has hit 534 biggies- the most sixes in cricket by anyone. Chris Gayle’s domination over bowlers, when on the song, is borderline insulting. He has the highest T20 score in the world (175* against Pune Warriors) and shares the record for the second-most sixes in an ODI innings with 16. He also holds the record for most T20 centuries with 22, 14 more than second-placed Michael Klinger.
