Highest 3rd Wicket Partnership in the History of T20 International

Whenever a team loses its first two wickets during the first 20 overs of a T20 cricket game, everything changes suddenly and becomes more dangerous when situations change so quickly. The T20 format is a quick game, and it is also very important for the team’s run rate to be maintained.

Every team makes sure that its middle-order is strong enough and capable of handling the pressure, and can take the scorecard to the defending total in the first innings or win the match in the second innings by scoring more runs than the defending total. In T20Is, the match is played over 20 overs, which often results in the middle-order batsmen not having enough time to form big partnerships as a result of the short format.

There are a lot of names who have played a major part in saving the match by their superb performances in the middle order.

The partnership of Hazratullah Zazai and Usman Ghani, who made 184 for New Zealand, is the record partnership for the country. Among them are AD Hales, Morgan, Guptill, Williamson, Rishab Pant, and a great many more.

In the history of T20 International cricket, there are 36 occasions when a middle-order pair has made a partnership of 100+ runs for the third wicket. Aftab Ahmed and Mohammad Ashraful, Bangladesh’s middle order batsmen, reached a century partnership for the third wicket against the West Indies at the ICC World Twenty20 2007/2008 in Johannesburg on 13 Sep 2007.

This was the first partnership that reached 100 for the third wicket in T20 cricket. Mohammad Ashraful and Aftab Ahmed scored 50 each for their respective teams in that 5th match of the ICC World Twenty20.

On 29 Nov 2020, DP Conway and GD Phillips added the highest 3rd wicket partnership in the history of Test cricket to the record books by adding 184 runs against the West Indies at Mount Maunganui. In the T20I, there are four times where the Indian team has been able to strike a partnership of 100 runs for the 3rd wicket for the Indian team.

In the history of Indian cricket, it was Kohli and Raina who formed the first partnership of 100+ runs against Australia in Adelaide on 26 January 2016 and this was the highest third-wicket partnership in Indian history.

There is no doubt that the middle-order batsmen of England and South Africa have the record of scoring the most runs in T20 Internationals, with five times 100+ runs scored by 3rd wicket partnerships. India came next, registering four times 100+ runs as a third wicket partnership in the middle order, followed by Pakistan 3 times, South Africa 4 times, and West Indies 1 time.

A third wicket partnership of 118 runs was achieved by Aaron Finch and Glenn Maxwell against Pakistan on 23 March 2014 at Dhaka, making it the highest partnership for Australia against Pakistan.

On the first day of the Australian tour in Dhaka on 1 April 2014, Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim scored 112 runs for Bangladesh in the fort of Australia at the third wicket.

As part of the highest third wicket partnership between the West Indies and New Zealand on 30 Jun 2012, Chris Gayle and Kieron Pollard added unbeaten 108 runs for West Indies against New Zealand at Lauderhill.

For the third wicket, Sri Lanka has never scored more than 100 runs and its highest score for the third wicket in T20 internationals is 94 runs.

Highest 3rd Wicket Partnership in T20 International

Batsmen (Team)	Runs	Against	Venue	Date
Devon Conway and Glenn Phillips (New Zealand)	184	West Indies	Mount Maunganui	29 Nov 2020
Dawid Malan and Eoin Morgan (England)	182	New Zealand	Napier	8 Nov 2019
Alex Hales and Eoin Morgan (England)	152	Sri Lanka	Chattogram	27 Mar 2014
Martin Guptill and Kane Williamson (New Zealand)	137	Zimbabwe	Auckland	11 Feb 2012
Moin Ali and Eoin Morgan (England)	135	Australia	Cardiff	31 Aug 2015
Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina (India)	134	Australia	Adelaide	26 Jan 2016
Richard Levi and AB de Villiers (South Africa)	133*	New Zealand	Hamilton	19 Feb 2012
Shikhar Dhawan and Rishabh Pant (India)	130	West Indies	Chennai	11 Nov 2018
Babar Hayat and Mark Chapman (Hong Kong)	127*	Oman	Abu Dhabi	26 Nov 2015
Calum MacLeod, Richie Berrington (Scotland)	127	Hong Kong	Abu Dhabi	14 Jan 2017
Ruvindu Gunasekera, Ashish Bagai (Canada)	125	Ireland	Abu Dhabi	16 Nov 2013
Matthew Cross, Richie Berrington (Scotland)	122	Ireland	Dublin	20 Sep 2019
Nicolas Pooran, Rovman Powel(West Indies)	122	England	Barbados	26 Jan 2022
Herschelle Gibbs and Justin Kemp (South Africa)	120*	West Indies	Johannesburg	11 Sep 2007
Virat Kohli and MK Pandey (India)	119	Sri Lanka	Colombo (RPS)	6 Sep 2017