NEW DELHI: The Indian cricket team concluded their final T20I assignment in record-breaking fashion. With Sanju Samson and Tilak Varma at the forefront, India scored a massive 283 – their second highest T20I total – at Johannesburg. The massive score put South Africa more or less out of the equation when they came to chase and India went on to win the clash and series by 3-1.
The performance and the series win were fitting for India who had a stellar year in the T20 format. Across 2024, India played 26 matches, won 24 and lost two (against Zimbabwe and South Africa).
India’s win percentage in T20I was 92.31, the highest ever by any team in the format, surpassing Pakistan’s 89.47% in 2018 (17 wins in 19 matches). In T20s, only Tamil Nadu’s 93.75% in 2021 (15 wins in 16 matches) has been better in a year.
The icing on the cake in 2024, or the cake itself, was the T20 World Cup title in the West Indies and USA. By going unbeaten throughout the tournament, India not only shed the bad memory of the ODI World Cup final defeat a couple of months earlier, they also ended their 11-year ICC title drought.
Besides the title win that defined the team in 2024, they played five bilateral series – against Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and South Africa – to win them all.
With Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli stepping away from the shortest format after the T20 World Cup, the responsibility of leading the team went to Suryakumar Yadav and he has carried that with aplomb. India triumphed away in Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and South Africa while also beating Bangladesh at home.
Rohit and Virat, two of India’s greatest cricketers, received a fitting farewell from T20Is. Rohit retired as a two-time T20 World Cup champion and India’s all-time leading T20I run-scorer (4,231 runs in 159 matches, including five centuries and 32 fifties). At the T20 World Cup, he scored 257 runs in eight matches, including three half-centuries.
Kohli, who had a modest tournament, delivered a decisive performance in the final against South Africa with a match-winning 75, earning the ‘Player of the Match’ accolade. He retired as the format’s second-highest run-scorer, amassing 4,188 runs in 125 matches at an average of 48.69, with one century and 38 fifties.
Except for the stalwarts, the youngsters embodied the aggression and “win-at-all-costs” attitude that was needed – especially after the 2021 World Cup.
India struck a boundary every 4.68 balls this year, their best-ever ratio, and a six every 12.19 balls, another best.
India scored 200-plus totals nine times, three times in the series against South Africa, thereby breaking the record for the most in a calendar year, previously held by Birmingham Bears (2022), India (2023), and Japan (2024) with seven each.
Men in Blue batters scored centuries in almost every series in 2024, a stark contrast to their conservative approach of the years gone by. With seven centuries — three by Sanju Samson, two by Tilak Varma, and one each by Rohit Sharma and Abhishek Sharma — India set a record for the most team centuries in a calendar year in T20Is.
India’s overall runs-per-over (RPO) this year stood at 9.55, their highest ever and the second-highest by a men’s T20I team in a calendar year (minimum 15 matches), only behind Australia’s 9.72 in 2024.
Individually, Sanju Samson flourished as an opener, scoring three centuries, the first-ever by any player. He was India’s top run-getter in T20Is in 2024 with 436 runs in 12 innings, averaging 43.60 with a strike rate of over 180. As an opener, he tallied 461 runs in nine innings, averaging 57.62 and striking at 193.62.
At the other end of the spectrum, he also recorded five ducks in the year – the most for an Indian player. Regis Chakabva of Zimbabwe had also recorded five scores of nought in 2022.
During the fifth T20I in Johannesburg, Samson and Tilak Varma scored centuries in the same innings, marking the first instance of such a milestone for a Test-playing nation in a T20I.
India’s top five batters collectively struck at 135.08 in their first 10 balls this year, the highest-ever for the team and the third-highest for any side with a minimum of 15 matches.
Eleven Indian batters scored 200-plus runs this year, with eight maintaining strike rates above 150. Among them were Tilak (306 runs at a strike rate of 187.73), Samson (436 runs, 180.16), and Yashasvi Jaiswal (293 runs, 172.35). Remarkably, five of these batters also averaged over 40.
The year belonged not just to the batters but also the fielders. They bowled out the opponents 10 times in 26 matches, the joint-most for a Test-playing nation in a calendar year.
Arshdeep Singh led the charge with the ball, taking 36 wickets in 18 matches at an average of 13.50, his haul the highest for a Test-playing nation bowler this year. The left-arm pacer finished the year out with two wickets needed to surpass Yuzvendra Chahal and become the leading wicket-taker for India in the format.
Indian bowlers averaged 8.39 wickets per innings, the highest-ever among Test-playing nations in a calendar year.
India recorded three victories by margins of 100-or-more this year, matching their tally from all previous years combined.
In 2024, India also witnessed two of their top-five biggest wins in terms of balls remaining and one of only two 10-wicket victories in their T20I history.