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Cricket PlayersA sweet splash of drama: T20 cricket’s six-appeal
In a thrilling match, South Africa and Afghanistan exchanged sixes in two Super Overs, showcasing the rising trend of six-hitting in T20 cricket.
New Delhi: South Africa were on the brink of losing to Afghanistan on Wednesday. With one ball left in the first Super Over, they needed seven runs to win and a six to tie. One big hit.
Tristan Stubbs was on strike against Fazalhaq Farooqi and the ball, a full toss, was in his hitting arc. The right-hander threw the kitchen sink at the delivery and it cleared long-off to tie the match for the second time. It didn’t end there.
The second Super Over saw SA batting first and scoring 23 runs. Afghanistan needed 24 to win and it didn’t look good when Mohammad Nabi swung and missed the first ball and was dismissed off the second. Two balls, zero runs. Four balls, 24 needed to win.
To most Indians, four consecutive sixes will always bring back memories of Kapil Dev and his demolition job against Eddie Hemmings during a Test match in 1990. There, too, no runs were scored off the first two deliveries. To those of a more recent vintage perhaps Yuvraj Singh (six sixes against England at the World T20 in 2007) or even Rinku Singh (five sixes off last five balls to script a miracle for KKR in IPL 2023) might rattle the memory cells.
But back to the SA-AFG match. Rahmanuallah Gurbaz strode out in the middle and the task was clear: a maximum off every ball. In another era, the match would have been considered lost. But such is the intent and power of the batters of this era that the Afghans held on to the slimmest of hopes.
Gurbaz obliged. A six straight down the ground. One over Marco Jansen at long-on. A six over deep midwicket. Three balls, three sixes. The sparse crowd was on its feet, the commentators were shouting themselves hoarse and there were some nervous smiles in the Afghanistan dugout. On a day that had been defined by the big hit, could they find one more?
They couldn’t but no one watching the game could say that they had not been entertained and key to that entertainment was the six-hitting. In the two Super Overs alone, eight sixes were hit. This was in addition to the 20 that were hit during the regulation overs.
T20 cricket has always been about the big hit. You appreciate the deftly placed single, the quickly run two, the well-timed four but it is the six, which takes the field out of the equation and can give someone in the stands a touch of the ball, that draws the loudest cheer.
Data collated by CricViz shows that six-hitting in Full Member T20Is, powered by intent and super bats, is on the rise. In 2005, when T20Is were first played, 3.82 per cent of the balls were hit for sixes. In 2026, the percentage has gone up to 7.16.
It is a sign of the times but also how six-hitting has become more common. In the 2012 season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), Chris Gayle hit a still-standing record 59 sixes in 15 matches. Kevin Pietersen, Cameron White and Dwayne Bravo were next on the list with 20.
Gayle was the perfect six-hitter – big, muscular, with power to spare. He spent hours in the gym to turn himself into a six-hitting machine. It all fit.
Now, take the 2025 IPL season. Twenty-three batters hit 20 or more sixes in the season. Nicholas Pooran topped the list with 40 – still not as many as Gayle – but the spread of hitters is so much greater.
In the Afghanistan-South Africa match, after the fall of Rashid Khan’s wicket, it seemed like the match was done (not for the first time). But Noor Ahmad, batting at nine down and averaging 9.44 in T20Is, smashed two sixes. Almost anyone can provide a sweet splash of drama.
There are, of course, some batters who make it look easier. Rohit Sharma is a touch artist, relying not on power but on timing and a subtle shift of weight. Just enough to get the right kind of elevation.
India opener Abhishek Sharma is a chip off his mentor Yuvraj Singh’s block. The left hander has the same magical bat swing, now aided by an even crazier intent.
Skipper Suryakumar Yadav belongs to the 360-degree group of players like Jos Buttler, Glenn Maxwell or AB de Villiers. They are masters of using the pace of the ball to their own benefit.
And finally, we have the ilk of MS Dhoni. The batters, like Hardik Pandya and David Miller, power merchants who bat deep in their crease and use their wrists to conjure up helicopter shots and the like. You miss (your length) and they will hit you out of the park.
It remains the most engaging moment in the game. As the ball soars towards the stands, the eyes of everyone in the stadium, the players, the commentators, the fans converge on it. A rare moment of unity in a world where there are distractions galore. Now, if that isn’t drama, then what is...
