Twenty20 International

Twenty20 International (T20I) is a form of Twenty20 cricket, in which each team plays a single innings with a maximum of twenty overs. The matches are played between international teams recognized by the International Cricket Council (ICC). In the T20I format, each bowler is restricted to a maximum of four overs. A mandatory powerplay is taken during the first six overs of an innings.

The first T20I match took place on 17 February 2005 between Australia and New Zealand, with the first ICC T20 World Cup held in 2007. The matches were initially competed between the full members of the ICC and selected associate member teams. In April 2018, the ICC announced that it would grant T20I status to matches played amongst any of all its 105 members from 1 January 2019. As of March 2025, 100 nations feature in ICC T20I team rankings. The number of matches of the format increased in the 2010s and more T20I matches (100) were played than ODI matches (99) for the first time in 2016.

As of November 2024^[update], India has the most number of wins (160) while Pakistan has played the most number of matches (247). Babar Azam holds the record of the most runs and Tim Southee of New Zealand holds the record for the most career wickets (164). The highest individual score is 172, made by Australia's Aaron Finch against Zimbabwe in 2018, while Malaysia's Syazrul Idrus recorded the best bowling figures of 7/8 against China in July 2023.

Cricket itself was probably first played in England in the Late Middle Ages, but it did not rise to prominence until the eighteenth century. A set of laws were drawn up in 1744, and the game achieved a level of relative standardisation by the late nineteenth century. One-day cricket was trialled in 1962, and the first domestic tournament played the following year, and in 1971, England and Australia contested the first One Day International. The match consisted of one innings for each side, with 40 eight-ball overs.

In the 1990s, a number of countries were exploring the possibility of a shorter game still: in New Zealand, Martin Crowe developed Cricket Max, in which each team bats for 10 eight-ball overs, while in Australia they considered an eight-a-side contest they dubbed "Super 8s". At the same time, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) conducted consumer research, and proposed the idea of a 20 overs-per-side contest, which would last for about three hours. The first match was played in 2003 between Hampshire and Sussex.^{[citation needed]}

The first Twenty20 International match between two men's sides was played on 17 February 2005, involving Australia and New Zealand. Wisden Cricketers' Almanack reported that "neither side took the game especially seriously", and it was noted by ESPNcricinfo that but for a large score for Ricky Ponting, "the concept would have shuddered". However, Ponting himself said "if it does become an international game then I'm sure the novelty won't be there all the time".

Two further matches were played that year; England beat Australia in June, and South Africa were defeated by New Zealand in October. Early the following year, a contest between New Zealand and the West Indies finished as the first tied match, and a tiebreak was played for the first time in men's international cricket: the two sides took part in a bowl-out to determine a winner; New Zealand won 3–0.

The game had initially been developed to boost the interest in domestic cricket, and to aid this the international teams were only allowed to host three T20Is each year. The cricket manager for the ICC, David Richardson, also commented that "Part of the success of Twenty20 cricket is making sure it can coexist with Test cricket and one-dayers." Despite this, the first international tournament was held in 2007 in South Africa; the 2007 ICC World Twenty20. That tournament was won by India, who defeated their close rivals Pakistan in the final. Writing for The Guardian, Dilip Premachandran suggested that the competition's success meant that "the format is here to stay". The next tournament was scheduled for 2009, and it was decided that they would take place biannually (more frequently than the 50 over Cricket World Cup, which occurs once every four years). In the opening match of the 2007 World Twenty20, Chris Gayle scored the first century in a T20I, the achievement being reached in the twentieth match of the format.