On 26 April 2024, at Eden Gardens, Kolkata Knight Riders and Punjab Kings hit 42 sixes in a single evening. No other IPL match up to the end of the 2025 season has passed 38. Sixteen years earlier, at Mohali on 19 April 2008, the first-ever IPL six-hitting record was set at 25. Thirty-nine IPL matches have beaten that number since.
This is the story of how the most-sixes-in-a-match record climbed from 17 on the IPL's opening night to 42, and why most of that climb happened in a 30-day window in the spring of 2024. Every number below comes from CricMind's ball-by-ball database: Cricsheet records of all 1,169 IPL matches from 2008 to 2025, with 14,353 sixes in total.
The Record That Kept Moving
The IPL's six record didn't rise steadily. It sat flat for years, then broke three times in one month.
2008–2010: McCullum, Hussey and the first marker
The tournament's first game, on 18 April 2008 at the Chinnaswamy, set the bar straight away. Brendon McCullum's 158* for Kolkata Knight Riders included 13 sixes, and the match finished with 17. The next afternoon at Mohali, Michael Hussey made 116* off 54 balls with nine sixes. Chennai posted 240/5, and the game against Kings XI Punjab produced 25 sixes. That was the 2008 high, and nothing in 2009 came close: the South African season peaked at 17.
On 3 April 2010 at Chepauk, Murali Vijay hit 127 off 56 balls with 11 sixes. Naman Ojha (94) and Shane Watson (60) answered for Rajasthan, and the match reached 30 sixes. That was the first time an IPL game hit the round number, and it stood alone for seven years.
2017–2023: The 33 plateau
From 2011 to 2016 no match passed 24, even across the Gayle years. The record moved again on 4 May 2017 at the Feroz Shah Kotla. Rishabh Pant hit 97 off 43 balls with nine sixes. With Sanju Samson's 61 off 31 (seven sixes, no fours), Delhi Daredevils chased 209 against Gujarat Lions, and the match reached 31.
The 2018 season, the year CSK came back from suspension, pushed the record to 33. On 10 April 2018 at Chepauk, Andre Russell hit 88 off 36 with 11 sixes, and the match reached 31. Fifteen days later at the Chinnaswamy, AB de Villiers (68 off 30) and Ambati Rayudu (82 off 53) hit eight sixes each. Then MS Dhoni made 70* off 34 with seven sixes to chase 206, and the match total reached 33. That total stood as the record for the next six years.
Two later matches equalled it. In Sharjah on 22 September 2020, Samson hit nine sixes in 74 off 32 and Faf du Plessis replied with seven. On 17 April 2023 at the Chinnaswamy, Devon Conway (83 off 45) and Glenn Maxwell (76 off 36, eight sixes) took it to 33 again. Three matches in five years had hit the same ceiling, so 33 started to look like the T20 limit.
March–April 2024: Three breaks in 30 days
It wasn't. On 27 March 2024 in Hyderabad, Sunrisers Hyderabad made 277/3, then the highest total in IPL history. Travis Head made 62 off 24, Abhishek Sharma 63 off 23 with seven sixes, and Heinrich Klaasen 80* off 34, also with seven. Mumbai Indians replied with 246/5, with Tilak Varma hitting six sixes in his 64, and lost by 31 runs. Mumbai hit 20 sixes to SRH's 18, so the losing side out-hit the winners. The match total was 38, five clear of the old record.
Nineteen days later at the Chinnaswamy, SRH did it again: 287/3, with Head's 102 off 41 (eight sixes) and Klaasen's 67 off 31 (seven). Dinesh Karthik's 83 off 35, with seven sixes, got RCB to 262/7 in reply. The match equalled 38. SRH's 22 sixes were an IPL innings record, breaking Chris Gayle's 2013-era RCB mark of 21.
Eleven days after that came the record that still stands.
The Night at Eden Gardens: 42 Sixes
KKR batted first against Punjab Kings, and Phil Salt (75 off 37, six sixes) and Sunil Narine (71 off 32) took the score to 261/6. Before 2024, no team had ever successfully chased anything like it in IPL history.
Punjab chased it down with eight balls to spare. Prabhsimran Singh made 54 off 20 at the top. Jonny Bairstow's 108* off 48 (nine sixes) held the chase together, and Shashank Singh finished it with 68* off 28. Shashank's innings had only two fours and eight sixes. Punjab's 262/2 was the highest chase in IPL history at the time.
Punjab hit 24 sixes, a new IPL innings record and two more than SRH's mark from 11 days earlier. KKR hit 18, so the match totalled 42. Harshit Rana conceded six sixes and 61 runs, and Sam Curran conceded five sixes.
| Rank | Date | Match | Venue | Sixes | Split | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 26 Apr 2024 | KKR 261/6 vs PBKS 262/2 | Eden Gardens | 42 | 18 / 24 | PBKS won by 8 wkts |
| 2= | 27 Mar 2024 | SRH 277/3 vs MI 246/5 | Hyderabad | 38 | 18 / 20 | SRH won by 31 runs |
| 2= | 15 Apr 2024 | SRH 287/3 vs RCB 262/7 | Chinnaswamy | 38 | 22 / 16 | SRH won by 25 runs |
| 4= | 25 Apr 2018 | RCB 205/8 vs CSK 207/5 | Chinnaswamy | 33 | 16 / 17 | CSK won by 5 wkts |
| 4= | 22 Sep 2020 | RR 216/7 vs CSK 200/6 | Sharjah | 33 | 17 / 16 | RR won by 16 runs |
| 4= | 17 Apr 2023 | CSK 226/6 vs RCB 218/8 | Chinnaswamy | 33 | 17 / 16 | CSK won by 8 runs |
| 7= | 27 Apr 2024 | DC 257/4 vs MI 247/9 | Delhi | 32 | 17 / 15 | DC won by 10 runs |
| 7= | 25 Mar 2025 | PBKS 243/5 vs GT 232/5 | Ahmedabad | 32 | 16 / 16 | PBKS won by 11 runs |
The table shows the 2024 effect clearly. A day after the Eden Gardens match, Delhi Capitals and Mumbai hit 32 more in Delhi. That makes four of the eight biggest six-hitting matches in IPL history inside one month of one season.
The Data Deep-Dive
How the record progressed
| Date | Match | Sixes | Main hitter(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Apr 2008 | RCB vs KKR | 17 | McCullum 13 |
| 19 Apr 2008 | KXIP vs CSK | 25 | Hussey 9 |
| 3 Apr 2010 | CSK vs RR | 30 | M Vijay 11 |
| 4 May 2017 | DD vs GL | 31 | Pant 9, Samson 7 |
| 25 Apr 2018 | RCB vs CSK | 33 | de Villiers 8, Rayudu 8, Dhoni 7 |
| 27 Mar 2024 | SRH vs MI | 38 | Abhishek 7, Klaasen 7 |
| 26 Apr 2024 | KKR vs PBKS | 42 | Bairstow 9, Shashank 8 |
The record moved 13 sixes in the first ten seasons, from 17 to 30. It moved three more in the next eight seasons (30 to 33), then nine in a single month of 2024. Records broken in bursts like this usually mean the game itself changed, not just one batter getting hot.
The season-by-season six rate
| Season | Matches | Sixes | Per match | Biggest single match |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 58 | 623 | 10.7 | 25 |
| 2009 | 57 | 508 | 8.9 | 17 |
| 2013 | 76 | 681 | 9.0 | 24 |
| 2017 | 59 | 706 | 12.0 | 31 |
| 2018 | 60 | 872 | 14.5 | 33 |
| 2022 | 74 | 1,062 | 14.4 | 27 |
| 2023 | 74 | 1,124 | 15.2 | 33 |
| 2024 | 71 | 1,261 | 17.8 | 42 |
| 2025 | 74 | 1,302 | 17.6 | 32 |
In 2009 an average IPL match had fewer than nine sixes. By 2024 it had nearly 18. The six-rate has doubled, and in 2025 the IPL topped 1,300 sixes in a season for the first time. The 2023 jump matters most. That was the first season with the Impact Player rule, which gave every side an extra specialist batter and freed the top order to swing from ball one. The six-rate rose in 2023, then took another big jump in 2024 as SRH showed what a fearless top three could do.
When 30 stopped being rare
| Era | Matches with 25+ sixes | Matches with 30+ sixes |
|---|---|---|
| 2008–2017 (10 seasons) | 5 | 2 |
| 2018–2022 (5 seasons) | 17 | 6 |
| 2023–2025 (3 seasons) | 30 | 10 |
In the IPL's first decade, a 25-six match happened once every two seasons. In the last three seasons it happened ten times a year. Of the 18 matches in IPL history with 30 or more sixes, ten came between 2023 and 2025.
The innings record, side by side
| Sixes | Team | Total | Date | Opponent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 | Punjab Kings | 262/2 | 26 Apr 2024 | KKR |
| 22 | Sunrisers Hyderabad | 287/3 | 15 Apr 2024 | RCB |
| 22 | Sunrisers Hyderabad | 266/7 | 20 Apr 2024 | Delhi Capitals |
| 21 | Royal Challengers Bangalore | 263/5 | 23 Apr 2013 | Pune Warriors |
| 20 | Mumbai Indians | 246/5 | 27 Mar 2024 | SRH |
| 20 | Delhi Daredevils | 214/3 | 4 May 2017 | Gujarat Lions |
| 20 | Royal Challengers Bangalore | 248/3 | 14 May 2016 | Gujarat Lions |
The 2013 RCB innings is the outlier in this table. Chris Gayle hit 17 of RCB's 21 sixes in his 175* off 66 balls, which is still the IPL's highest individual score and is covered in full in our Gayle 17-six record book. The 2024 records are different: Punjab's 24 were spread across five batters, and nobody hit more than nine. Gayle's record was one batter's innings. The 2024 records came from whole batting line-ups.
Does hitting more sixes win you the match?
Usually, but not always. In the 1,017 decided IPL matches where one side hit more sixes, that side won 67.7% of the time. The edge shrinks in the biggest six-hitting matches: in the 18 matches with 30-plus sixes, the side that hit more won only 11. Mumbai hit two more sixes than SRH in March 2024 and lost by 31 runs, and Rajasthan out-hit Sunrisers 18 to 12 in March 2025 and still lost by 44. When both teams are clearing the rope every over, the side with fewer dot balls and stronger fours tends to win. For the run totals behind these games, see our highest combined match aggregates analysis.
Where the Sixes Fly: The Venue Factor
Among grounds with at least 25 IPL matches, the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad leads at 17.3 sixes per match. Wankhede (16.0 in its recent records), Sharjah (14.1) and the Chinnaswamy (13.2) follow. Ahmedabad's average comes almost entirely from the high-scoring seasons since 2021. The Chinnaswamy's has built up over 18 seasons. It has hosted three of the 33-plus matches, including the 38-six SRH vs RCB game and the 2018 de Villiers–Dhoni night.
Eden Gardens isn't in the top five by average, which makes its place at the top of the record more striking. The 42-six night came from two batting line-ups at their best on the same evening.
Legacy Impact: What This Means for IPL 2027
The 2026 season is not yet in the Cricsheet ball-by-ball archive, so the table above stops at 2025. Even so, the trend is clear. Since 2022 the six-rate has hit a new high or stayed close to it every season. Ten of the 18 matches with 30-plus sixes came in the last three years, and the record has already been broken three times in a month once. The 42 is not an untouchable number like Gayle's 175*.
The batters who could break it are still in the league. Head, Abhishek and Klaasen drove both 38-six matches, and Head and Abhishek hit six sixes each in the 31-six game against Delhi. Vaibhav Suryavanshi hit 11 sixes for Rajasthan against Gujarat Titans on 28 April 2025, the joint-sixth most in any IPL innings. Shashank Singh and Prabhsimran Singh are still at Punjab, and Shreyas Iyer hit nine sixes in the 32-six game against Gujarat in March 2025. A flat pitch at Ahmedabad or the Chinnaswamy with two of these line-ups could get close.
CricMind's Oracle doesn't predict sixes directly, but the conditions behind a 40-six match show up in its numbers too. Its team ratings and form EMAs pick up the same signals: two in-form batting sides, a high-scoring venue and bowling attacks that have been leaking runs. When the Oracle publishes a call with both sides rated as strong batting teams at a flat ground, that's also the kind of fixture where a six record could fall. You can test any pairing yourself in the Matchup Machine.
For bowlers, the lesson from 2024 is harsh. Before 2024, Lockie Ferguson conceding six sixes in one match at the Chinnaswamy would have been a rare disaster. In the 2024–25 seasons, nights like that happened regularly to good bowlers. Death-over yorkers, wide lines with protected boundaries and slower balls into the pitch are the defences that held up best. The bowling data in our most sixes conceded breakdown shows which bowlers held up and which didn't.
Three Takeaways
- The 42-six record is recent, not ancient. The record stood at 33 from April 2018 to March 2024, then rose by nine in 30 days. It belongs to the modern game, and the same conditions that produced it are still in place.
- Six-hitting is now a whole-team job. Gayle hit 17 of RCB's 21 sixes in 2013. In 2024, Punjab's 24 were shared across five batters and SRH's 22 across six. The record now depends on batting depth, which the Impact Player rule has increased.
- More sixes still don't guarantee a win. The side that hits more sixes wins about two in three IPL matches, but only 11 of the 18 matches with 30-plus sixes. In the highest-scoring games, strike rotation and fours still decide the result.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the record for most sixes in a single IPL match?
The record is 42 sixes, set by Kolkata Knight Riders (18) and Punjab Kings (24) at Eden Gardens on 26 April 2024. Punjab chased 262 to win by eight wickets with eight balls left. Jonny Bairstow (108*, nine sixes) and Shashank Singh (68*, eight sixes) led the chase.
Which team has hit the most sixes in a single IPL innings?
Punjab Kings hit 24 sixes in their 262/2 against KKR on 26 April 2024. Sunrisers Hyderabad hold the next two spots with 22, against RCB (287/3) and Delhi Capitals (266/7), both in April 2024. Royal Challengers Bangalore's 21 against Pune Warriors in 2013 is next.
What was the IPL most-sixes record before 2024?
Before 2024 the record was 33 sixes, first set by RCB and CSK at the Chinnaswamy on 25 April 2018. RR vs CSK in Sharjah (2020) and CSK vs RCB at the Chinnaswamy (2023) equalled it. SRH and MI broke it with 38 on 27 March 2024.
Who has hit the most sixes in a single IPL match as an individual?
Chris Gayle, with 17 sixes in his 175* off 66 balls for RCB against Pune Warriors on 23 April 2013. Gayle (2012) and Brendon McCullum (2008) share second place with 13. Gayle's career totals are on his T20 profile.
How many sixes are hit in an average IPL match now?
In 2024 the average was 17.8 sixes per match, and in 2025 it was 17.6. That's about double the 8.9 per match of 2009. The 2025 season had 1,302 sixes, the most ever in an IPL season.
Which IPL venue produces the most sixes?
Among grounds with at least 25 IPL matches, Ahmedabad's Narendra Modi Stadium averages the most, at 17.3 sixes per match. It is followed by Wankhede, Sharjah and the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. The Chinnaswamy has hosted three matches with 33 or more sixes.
Could the 42-six record fall in IPL 2027?
It could. Ten of the 18 IPL matches with 30-plus sixes have come since 2023, and the record already moved nine sixes in a single month in 2024. Several of the batters behind those 2024 matches are still active in the league, along with new hitters like Vaibhav Suryavanshi.
For the all-format six-hitting leaderboard, see most T20 sixes of all time. For the batters behind these records, see the IPL most sixes all-time records piece.