20 fun facts about World T20 (Part 1)

Think you know everything about the upcoming ICC World Twenty20? These 10 unknown facts are sure to blow your mind. Read on…

1. So far only six players have been successful in scoring a century in World 20 matches and they all belong to different countries. They are: Chris Gayle (West Indies), Suresh Raina (India), Mahela Jayawardene (Sri Lanka), Brendan McCullum (New Zealand), Alex Hales (England) and Ahmed Shehzad (Pakistan).


2. Team Sri Lanka's Tilkaratne Dilshan has scored most runs in one edition of World T20. 317 runs in 7 matches in 2009.


3. Team New Zealand tied twice with Team West Indies in 2008 and 2012. Interestingly, New Zealand lost both matches.


4. ICC World Twenty20 has been held every two years with the exception of the matches played in 2009 and 2010. Also the next World T20 tournament is going to be held after a gap of 4 years in 2020.


5. So far the World T20 tournament has been held in the following countries South Africa (2007), England (2009), West Indies (2010), Sri Lanka (2012), Bangladesh (2014). It will be held in India this year and the venue for the World T20 in 2020 will be Australia. No venue has been repeated so far.


6. The first time the ICC World Twenty20 was held in Asia was in 2012 in Sri Lanka. Thereafter, Asian continues to remain the favourite continent for holding the World T20 tournament. Otherwise from 2007 till 2010, tournaments were held in different continents.


7. Team Nepal, Team Hong Kong and Team United Arab Emirates made their World T20 debuts in 2014. Out of these only Team Hong Kong is participating in this year's tournament.


8. Team Oman will play in this year's qualifying tournament. Prior to this Oman only held Twenty20 status. However, thanks to their first World Twenty20 tournament debut, they now have Twenty20 International status.


9. This year Team India is the only team without a coach. Ironically, their only World T20 win was when they played without an official coach in 2007, as then Team India coach Greg Chappell had resigned months prior to the tournament. For the previous T20 tournaments coaches Gary Kirsten (2008–2011) and Duncan Fletcher (2011-2015) coached Team India.


10. Team New Zealand's two players achieved hat tricks in two consecutive World T20 tournaments. Jacob Oram in 2009 and Tim Southee in 2010. The matches were against Sri Lanka and Pakistan respectively.

Read Part 2 of this article here.