One Day International (ODI) World Cup is among the most desirable cricketing event which is organized by ICC (International Cricket Council). The ICC organizes the marquee tournament every four years and hence it makes this particular tournament most anticipated among fans. Throughout the years, from great stroke players to hard hitters, every individual has participated in this major cricketing event.
The game of cricket has evolved over the years and the way of playing all the formats has certainly evolved too. The introduction of the T20 format has seen the game become more fast-paced and the players have enhanced their six-hitting capability. Batters nowadays don’t generally believe in taking singles but now they more often than not try to hit every ball out of the park to settle in or build their innings. Until this date, there have been 12 ODI World Cups and by looking at the evolution of runs scored in every match one can speculate how has the approach of playing the game changed over the years.
There were hardly any sixes that were hit in the early 1970s and on the contrary, there are a lot of sixes in today’s game. One can almost see an exponential rise in the number of sixes since 1975 when the inaugural World Cup tournament was held in England. The West Indian legend, Chris Gayle leads the chart for the maximum number of sixes scored in the history of all the World Cups.
Throughout his cricketing career span from 2003 to 2019, Gayle has represented the West Indies side on 35 occasions in which he has scored 1186 runs but most importantly the left-hand batter has hit 49 maximums. One can judge the magnitude of this feat by the fact the second player on the list is AB de Villiers with 37 sixes.
The 2023 edition of the World Cup is set to be hosted by India in the month of October. But the schedule for the marquee event is still not decided but as per reports the schedule can be released on June 27.
Player | Matches | Innings | Sixes |
Rohit Sharma (IND) | 28 | 28 | 54 |
C Gayle (WI) | 35 | 34 | 49 |
Glenn Maxwell (AUS) | 27 | 25 | 43 |
David Warner (AUS) | 29 | 29 | 41 |
AB De Villiers (SA) | 23 | 22 | 37 |
David Miller (SA) | 24 | 21 | 35 |
R Ponting (AUS) | 46 | 42 | 31 |
BB McCullum (NZ) | 34 | 27 | 29 |
H Gibbs (SA) | 25 | 23 | 28 |
S Tendulkar (IND) | 45 | 44 | 27 |
S Jayasuriya (SL) | 38 | 37 | 27 |
E Morgan (ENG) | 29 | 27 | 26 |
Quinton de Kock (SA) | 27 | 27 | 25 |
S Ganguly (IND) | 21 | 21 | 25 |
Mahmudullah (BAN) | 25 | 22 | 25 |
*Last Updated on 19th Nov, 2023