In any cricket game, scoring the first run is often the hardest, marking an important mental milestone for any batter. The pressure is even greater in a T20 World Cup match, where every run is crucial for the team.
Unfortunately, some batters fail to score even one run, ending their turn with a duck, which can hurt their team’s chances. Here we look at five batters in T20 World Cup history (2007-2024) who have the most ducks.
Here are Five Players With the Most Ducks in T20 World Cup Matches:
5. Andre Russell – 4 ducks
West Indies cricket star Andre Russell has scored zero runs (a duck) four times in 24 matches across five different T20 World Cup tournaments from 2012 to 2024. His batting average at these big events is a low 16.85, and his strike rate of 147.50 is lower than his usual T20 International rate of nearly 164.
Despite his poor batting statistics, Andre Russell often performs well in crucial knockout games for West Indies. He has helped his team win the World Cup twice, in 2012 and 2016.
West Indies wicketkeeper-batter Johnson Charles, who played in the 2012 and 2016 T20 World Cups winning teams, has set an unfortunate record by getting out without scoring (a duck) four times in his 21 tournament games. In the 2024 T20 World Cup, he got out for a duck against Papua New Guinea and New Zealand in matches at Providence and Tarouba. Throughout his T20 World Cup career, Charles has scored only 456 runs in 20 innings, with a low strike rate of 113.71 and an average of 22.80.
3. Soumya Sarkar – 4 ducks
Bangladeshi cricketer Soumya Sarkar holds an unwanted record in T20 International (T20I) cricket for the most times getting out without scoring (13 ducks) in 83 innings. Four of these ducks happened in just 16 T20 World Cup matches. In a game against Sri Lanka during the Group D match of the 2024 T20 World Cup in Dallas, he also failed to score.
Sarkar’s batting average in T20 World Cups games is 9.43, and his strike rate is 98.69, both of which are much lower than his overall international performance.
Tillakaratne Dilshan, who was part of Sri Lanka’s team that won the 2014 T20 World Cup and was the top run-scorer in 2009, has had five matches where he got out without scoring (ducks) in his 34 innings. Despite these occasional failures, he compensates by scoring well, with a total of 897 runs, an average of almost 31, and a strike rate of 124.06.
Besides holding the joint record for the most ducks in T20 World Cups, Dilshan has also had 10 scoreless innings in all of his T20 international matches for Sri Lanka.
1. Shahid Afridi – 5 ducks
Legendary Pakistani all-rounder Shahid Afridi has scored five of his eight T20I ducks during T20 World Cups. One of his most memorable moments is the first-ball duck he got against India in the 2007 T20 World Cups final.
Despite his poor batting average of 18.82 in 32 T20 World Cup innings, Afridi was a key player in Pakistan’s 2009 title win and was named ‘Player of the Tournament’ in 2007.