The game of cricket has changed a lot since the shorter formats came into existence. There were hardly any sixes hit in the early 1970s and there are a lot of sixes in today’s game. One can almost see an exponential rise in the number of sixes since 1975 when the inaugural World Cup tournament was held in England.
Here is the complete list of the players who have hit the highest number of sixes in every World Cup edition along with their batting stats:
Highest Number of Sixes In World Cup By Each Season
Year | Player | Team | 6s | Inns | Runs | Ave | SR |
2019 | Eoin Morgan | England | 22 | 11 | 371 | 41.22 | 111.07 |
2015 | Chris Gayle | West Indies | 26 | 6 | 340 | 57 | 117 |
2011 | Ross Taylor | New Zealand | 14 | 6 | 324 | 65 | 87 |
2007 | Matthew Hayden | Australia | 18 | 10 | 659 | 73 | 101 |
2003 | Sourav Ganguly | India | 15 | 11 | 465 | 58 | 82 |
1999 | Lance Klusener | South Africa | 10 | 8 | 281 | 141 | 122 |
1995 | Asanka Gurusinha | Sri Lanka | 11 | 6 | 307 | 51 | 75 |
1991 | Mark Greatbatch | New Zealand | 13 | 7 | 313 | 45 | 88 |
1987 | Viv Richards | West Indies | 13 | 6 | 391 | 65 | 107 |
1983 | David Gower | England | 9 | 7 | 384 | 77 | 85 |
1979 | Graham Gooch | England | 4 | 5 | 210 | 53 | 64 |
1975 | Chris Old | England | 3 | 4 | 89 | 45 | 137 |
Also read - Highest batting average in world cup
There is a multifold difference in the most number of sixes hit by a batsman in the World Cup 1975 and in the World Cup 2019. Chris Old from England hit the most sixes, which is 3, in the inaugural World Cup tournament and the England Cricket Team Captain Eoin Morgan hit 22 sixes in 2019.
While there are eight other batsmen who have topped the Most sixes in World Cup chart by hitting more than 10 sixes, no batsman apart from Chris Gayle except Eoin Morgan has hit more than 20. The English batsmen found their names on the list in the first three World Cups, but there is nobody from England who has hit the most number of sixes in a single edition till the last World Cup in 2019.
Gayle has the best ratio of sixes per innings of 4.33 in the 2015 edition.