In the first episode of Wisden and CricViz‘s The Greatest T20 podcast, Luke Wright, the former England all-rounder, and Freddie Wilde, CricViz analyst and co-author of Cricket 2.0: Inside the T20 Revolution, joined host Yas Rana to name the greatest T20 batsman of all time.
You can listen to the full discussion about the greatest batsmen in the history of T20 cricket on Wisden and CricViz‘s new podcast, The Greatest T20, on the Podcast App or Spotify.
After analysing the careers of batsmen from around the world, the panel named Chris Gayle as the greatest batsman in the history of the 20-over game. Here are the other batsmen who entered the conversation.
David Warner
280 T20s, 9,218 runs, SR: 142.20, 8 100s, 75 50s, HS: 135*
LW: Even if you’re having your best day out as a bowler and you’re getting yorkers in, he’s got an answer to that. Someone like him, you stand there at times in awe and as a bowler, you turn around and go, ‘Look I’ve delivered everything I wanted to and he’s still able to hit me for four’. Gayle can be brutal but someone like AB de Villiers is just so scary at what he can do to you.
FW: He is the sort of player you’re thinking – what can you do to this guy? With Gayle, there are slight areas to exploit. In this debate, those two [Gayle and de Villiers] already stand out. Gayle, for statistical dominance, the sheer volume of runs, awesome power. De Villiers then does things that Gayle can’t do. That is a frightening prospect for a bowler or fielding captain.
