On 23 April 2013, at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Chris Gayle hit 17 sixes in a single innings against Pune Warriors. Through the end of the 2025 season, across more than 1,100 further IPL matches, nobody else hit more than 13. Across 18 seasons from 2008 to 2025, Cricsheet's ball-by-ball records log 14,337 sixes in 1,169 matches. One evening in Bengaluru produced 17 of them from one bat, and only 19 IPL innings in history have reached even 10.
This is the story of the IPL's six-hitting record book, from the single innings to the over, the team and the match, through to the careers built on clearing the rope. It is also the story of a league whose six rate went from 10.7 per match in 2008 to 17.8 in 2024. That raises an obvious question: if teams now hit nearly twice as many sixes as they used to, why has Gayle's individual mark not even been threatened?
The 17: anatomy of the IPL's most untouchable innings
23 April 2013: 175 not out off 66 balls
Rain had delayed the start in Bengaluru on 23 April 2013. Gayle, opening for Royal Challengers Bangalore, reached his hundred in 30 balls, still the fastest century in IPL history. He finished on 175 not out from 66 deliveries with 13 fours and 17 sixes. That is 102 runs in sixes alone: a hundred made purely from hits over the rope, before you count a single four or run.
RCB made 263 for 5, the highest IPL total for the next 11 seasons, and won by 130 runs. The 21 sixes in that innings stood as the team record until 2024. Gayle hit 17 of the 21, or 81% of his side's sixes.
Why 17 is different
The usual explanation is that Gayle was a physical outlier. The data points to something more specific: volume. Gayle faced 66 balls and cleared the rope with more than a quarter of them, while most ten-six innings come from 35 to 60 balls. Through 2025, his 2013 knock was the only IPL innings with more than 13 sixes, and it came from a batter who treated a 20-over match as one long attempt at maximums.
The near misses that prove the point
Gayle himself holds three of the top four IPL innings for sixes. He hit 13 in his 128 not out against Delhi Daredevils at the Feroz Shah Kotla on 17 May 2012 and 12 in his 117 against Kings XI Punjab on 6 May 2015. Brendon McCullum's 158 not out on the IPL's opening night, 18 April 2008, is the only other innings to reach 13. Nobody else has gone past 12.
Data deep-dive: the six-hitting record book, 2008–2025
All figures below are from Cricsheet ball-by-ball data for every IPL match from 2008 to 2025. Sixes count batter runs of six, Super Overs excluded.
Most sixes in an IPL innings
| Sixes | Batter | Score | Team | Opponent | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 | Chris Gayle | 175* (66) | RCB | Pune Warriors | 23 Apr 2013 |
| 13 | Brendon McCullum | 158* (73) | KKR | RCB | 18 Apr 2008 |
| 13 | Chris Gayle | 128* (62) | RCB | Delhi Daredevils | 17 May 2012 |
| 12 | Chris Gayle | 117 (57) | RCB | Kings XI Punjab | 6 May 2015 |
| 12 | AB de Villiers | 129* (52) | RCB | Gujarat Lions | 14 May 2016 |
| 11 | Sanath Jayasuriya | 114* (48) | MI | CSK | 14 May 2008 |
| 11 | Murali Vijay | 127 (56) | CSK | RR | 3 Apr 2010 |
| 11 | Andre Russell | 88* (36) | KKR | CSK | 10 Apr 2018 |
| 11 | Chris Gayle | 104* (63) | Kings XI Punjab | SRH | 19 Apr 2018 |
| 11 | Vaibhav Suryavanshi | 101 (38) | RR | GT | 28 Apr 2025 |
| 10 | Abhishek Sharma | 141 (55) | SRH | PBKS | 12 Apr 2025 |
| 10 | Quinton de Kock | 140* (70) | LSG | KKR | 18 May 2022 |
| 10 | Shubman Gill | 129 (60) | GT | MI | 26 May 2023 |
Gayle owns five of the top nine places. Also worth noting is Andre Russell's 88 not out at Chepauk on 10 April 2018: 11 sixes and one four, the most six-heavy innings on the list, and KKR still lost by five wickets. Vaibhav Suryavanshi's 101 against Gujarat Titans in Jaipur on 28 April 2025 came at the age of 14. Of the 19 IPL innings with ten or more sixes, it is the one that changes how far into the future this record book may run.
Most sixes in a team innings
| Sixes | Team | Total | Opponent | Venue | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 | Punjab Kings | 262/2 (18.4) | KKR | Eden Gardens | 26 Apr 2024 |
| 22 | Sunrisers Hyderabad | 287/3 | RCB | Chinnaswamy | 15 Apr 2024 |
| 22 | Sunrisers Hyderabad | 266/7 | DC | Arun Jaitley Stadium | 20 Apr 2024 |
| 21 | RCB | 263/5 | Pune Warriors | Chinnaswamy | 23 Apr 2013 |
| 20 | Delhi Daredevils | 214/3 (17.5) | Gujarat Lions | Feroz Shah Kotla | 4 May 2017 |
| 20 | Mumbai Indians | 246/5 | SRH | Uppal | 27 Mar 2024 |
| 20 | RCB | 248/3 | Gujarat Lions | Chinnaswamy | 14 May 2016 |
| 19 | Sunrisers Hyderabad | 278/3 | KKR | Arun Jaitley Stadium | 25 May 2025 |
RCB's 21 sixes from 2013 stood as the team record for 11 years. It fell three times in 11 days in April 2024. Punjab Kings' 24 sixes came in a run chase: they hunted down 262 at Eden Gardens with eight balls to spare, the highest successful chase in IPL history at the time. Mumbai's 20 sixes on 27 March 2024 came in a 31-run defeat, which says plenty about where the 2024 scoring bar sat.
Most sixes in an IPL match
| Sixes | Match | Venue | Date | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 42 | KKR vs PBKS | Eden Gardens | 26 Apr 2024 | PBKS won by 8 wickets |
| 38 | SRH vs MI | Uppal, Hyderabad | 27 Mar 2024 | SRH won by 31 runs |
| 38 | SRH vs RCB | Chinnaswamy | 15 Apr 2024 | SRH won by 25 runs |
| 33 | RCB vs CSK | Chinnaswamy | 25 Apr 2018 | CSK won by 5 wickets |
| 33 | RR vs CSK | Sharjah | 22 Sep 2020 | RR won by 16 runs |
| 33 | CSK vs RCB | Chinnaswamy | 17 Apr 2023 | CSK won by 8 runs |
All three of the biggest six-hitting matches in IPL history were played within 31 days in spring 2024.
Sixes per match, season by season
| Season | Sixes | Matches | Per match |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 623 | 58 | 10.7 |
| 2009 | 506 | 57 | 8.9 |
| 2013 | 675 | 76 | 8.9 |
| 2017 | 705 | 59 | 11.9 |
| 2018 | 872 | 60 | 14.5 |
| 2022 | 1,062 | 74 | 14.4 |
| 2023 | 1,124 | 74 | 15.2 |
| 2024 | 1,261 | 71 | 17.8 |
| 2025 | 1,301 | 74 | 17.6 |
The 2009 season, played in South Africa, is the low point at 8.9 sixes per match, and 2013 matched it despite Gayle's 17. The real step changes came in 2018 (+2.6 per match on 2017) and from 2023 onwards, when the Impact Player rule gave every side an extra batter. The 2025 season produced the most sixes of any IPL edition to that point: 1,301.
Most IPL sixes in a career and a season
| Career sixes (2008–2025) | Season sixes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Chris Gayle | 357 | Chris Gayle, 2012 | 59 |
| Rohit Sharma | 303 | Andre Russell, 2019 | 52 |
| Virat Kohli | 292 | Chris Gayle, 2013 | 51 |
| MS Dhoni | 264 | Jos Buttler, 2022 | 45 |
| AB de Villiers | 251 | Chris Gayle, 2011 | 44 |
| David Warner | 236 | Abhishek Sharma, 2024 | 42 |
| Kieron Pollard | 223 | Nicholas Pooran, 2025 | 40 |
| Andre Russell | 223 | Shreyas Iyer, 2025 | 39 |
Gayle played his last IPL match in 2021 and still led Rohit Sharma by 54 at the end of 2025. He also has three of the five biggest single seasons. Russell's 52 in 2019 is the record for a batter who mostly came in at No. 5 or lower.
The over: five sixes in six balls
Through 2025, no batter had hit six sixes in an IPL over. Five batters hit five:
- Chris Gayle off Rahul Sharma, 13th over, RCB vs Pune Warriors, Chinnaswamy, 17 April 2012
- [Rahul Tewatia](/players/rahul-tewatia) off Sheldon Cottrell, 18th over, RR vs Kings XI Punjab, Sharjah, 27 September 2020. RR chased 224 after Tewatia had struggled for timing for most of his innings.
- [Ravindra Jadeja](/players/ravindra-jadeja) off Harshal Patel, 20th over, CSK vs RCB, Wankhede, 25 April 2021. The over cost 37 runs, the joint-most in IPL history.
- [Rinku Singh](/players/rinku-singh) off Yash Dayal, 20th over, KKR vs GT, Ahmedabad, 9 April 2023. Five consecutive sixes with 28 needed off five balls.
- [Riyan Parag](/players/riyan-parag) off Moeen Ali, 13th over, RR vs KKR, Eden Gardens, 4 May 2025. RR lost by one run.
Three of the five came at the death and decided the match. That makes this the record most closely tied to results. A batter needs a big individual innings to win a game, but five sixes in an over can win it within a single over.
Legacy impact: what the six record means for IPL 2026 and beyond
The numbers show a league that has changed underneath its record book. Sixes per match rose 66% from 2008 to 2024. The team-innings and match records moved several times in 2024 alone, and the season record was broken again in 2025. The structural records are now being broken often.
The individual record is not. Through 2025, Gayle's 17 had survived the Impact Player era, the 280-plus totals and the 14-year-old prodigy. One reason is that the modern six boom is spread more evenly across the batting order. When SRH hit 22 sixes in their 287 against RCB in 2024, the hitting was shared: Travis Head, Heinrich Klaasen, Abdul Samad and Abhishek Sharma all cleared the rope. Teams now plan for six-hitting across a line-up, so sixes are spread across the XI instead of piling up behind one opener. Under that model, Gayle's 17 sixes in an innings is harder to reach, not easier.
The candidates who could challenge it are the young openers with Gayle-like six rates: Abhishek Sharma at SRH and Vaibhav Suryavanshi at RR. Both have already hit ten or more sixes in an innings. For a batter to reach 18, they would need to bat through 20 overs at a six every four balls, and nobody did that in the 1,169 matches from 2008 to 2025. When the IPL resumes, CricMind's Oracle prices team scoring through form-weighted Elo ratings rather than one-off innings, and our model calibration page shows how its forecasts compare with outcomes. Even so, no model in cricket would give 18 sixes in an innings better than long odds in any single match. For now, it is the safest batting record in the IPL.
Rohit Sharma has the most realistic route to the career record: 303 sixes to Gayle's 357 entering 2026, with Virat Kohli 11 further back. Our career milestones tracker follows that chase. For the full list of all-time marks, see our piece on the IPL's unbreakable records.
Three takeaways
- The individual record is an outlier. Gayle's 17 sixes on 23 April 2013 were still four clear of anyone else after 18 seasons, while sixes per match have almost doubled since. No other IPL batting record that old has held on by such a margin.
- The collective records belong to 2024. The record for a team innings (PBKS, 24 sixes) and the top three entries for a match (42, 38, 38) were all set in April 2024. The 2025 season then posted the most sixes of any IPL season to that point (1,301).
- Five sixes in an over decides matches. Three of the five five-six overs came at the death and turned the result, including Tewatia in Sharjah in 2020 and Rinku in Ahmedabad in 2023.
FAQ
Who has hit the most sixes in an IPL innings?
Chris Gayle holds the record (2008–2025 data): 17 sixes in his 175 not out for Royal Challengers Bangalore against Pune Warriors on 23 April 2013 at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. The next-best figure is 13, by Brendon McCullum (158 in 2008) and Gayle himself (128 in 2012).
What is the record for most sixes by a team in an IPL innings?
Punjab Kings hit 24 sixes while chasing 262 against Kolkata Knight Riders at Eden Gardens on 26 April 2024. They reached 262 for 2 in 18.4 overs. Sunrisers Hyderabad hit 22 twice in April 2024.
Which IPL match had the most sixes?
KKR vs PBKS at Eden Gardens on 26 April 2024 produced 42 sixes, 18 by KKR and 24 by Punjab. Two Sunrisers Hyderabad matches from 2024, against MI and RCB, share second place with 38 each.
Has anyone hit six sixes in an over in the IPL?
Not between 2008 and 2025. The IPL record in that period is five sixes in an over, achieved by Chris Gayle (2012), Rahul Tewatia (2020), Ravindra Jadeja (2021), Rinku Singh (2023) and Riyan Parag (2025).
Who has hit the most sixes in IPL history?
Through the 2025 season, Chris Gayle leads with 357 sixes, hit between 2009 and 2021. Rohit Sharma is second with 303 and Virat Kohli third with 292. Both played on in IPL 2026.
Which IPL season had the most sixes?
Between 2008 and 2025, the 2025 season produced the most sixes: 1,301 in 74 matches. The 2024 season had the highest rate per match, at 17.8 sixes per game.
Who has hit the most sixes in a single IPL season?
Chris Gayle hit 59 sixes for RCB in IPL 2012, the single-season record through 2025. Andre Russell is second with 52 for KKR in 2019.