Stats - Pollard ends Gayle's 12-year regin as leading T20 run-scorer

Kieron Pollard became the leading run-getter in the history of T20 cricket, going past his fellow West Indian, Chris Gayle's tally of 14,562 runs. Gayle had remained the leading run-getter in men's T20 cricket ever since he first topped the list on March 28, 2014.

Gayle's reign as T20 cricket's leading run-scorer ended after 4467 days on Saturday, when Pollard struck an unbeaten 100 for MI New York against Washington Freedom in the MLC. Pollard, the most capped T20 player with 736 appearances, scored only his second hundred, having previously made 104 in the 2018 CPL.

Gayle ends Australian dominance

Pollard is only the ninth batter to sit at the top of the leading run-getters in men's T20 cricket, but Gayle, whom he displaced, held the position for the longest. Even though Gayle was the first player from outside England and Australian to become the leading run-getter in T20 cricket, his span as the top run-getter, from 2014 to 2026, itself is more than half of T20 cricket's history.

Keith Dutch was at the top at the end of the opening day of T20 cricket - June 13, 2003 - following his 70-run knock for Somerset against Warwickshire at Taunton. Graham Thorpe moved ahead the next day, while Michael Hussey got to the top two days later.

That marked the start of Australia's dominance of this record. Brad Hodge was at the top by the end of the inaugural 2003 season and continued his success back home for Victoria in the Big Bash State Cup. Hodge was the format's leading run-getter between January 2007 and July 2010, until another Victorian and Michael's younger brother, David Hussey, challenged him.

Hodge was the first man to complete 1000 T20 runs, in July 2006, from just 23 innings. He was also the first to 2000 runs, but David beat him to become the first to 3000 and 4000 runs. David was at the top between June 2010 and January 2013, apart from a few weeks when Hodge reclaimed the lead.

The competition between them heated up in April 2012, when the top spot changed hands four times in a week. Hodge took over from David in January 2013 and became the first to scale 5000 runs, while Gayle was quickly climbing up elsewhere.

Gayle moved ahead in the latter half of that year, but Hodge returned on New Year's Day in 2014, for the last time. Gayle surpassed him in March and became the first player to cross the 6000-run mark a month later.

From then on, Gayle not only held the record for more than a decade but also began to distance himself from everyone else. He became the first batter to reach each block of 1000 runs until 14,000. At the time of his last T20 game in February 2022, Shoaib Malik was second on the list with 11,611 runs, almost 3000 behind Gayle's final tally of 14,562.

The non-opener who became the highest run-getter

One of the biggest hurdles Pollard had in scaling the T20 peak was that he was a middle-order batter for the entirety of his career. He never opened the batting despite playing more matches and batting in more innings than anyone else in this format. Only in 22 innings did he bat at No. 3, and none of those have come since 2019.

The next most T20 runs by a batter without ever opening the batting is 8654 by Suresh Raina. In terms of innings batted, Mohammad Nabi comes second, as all 405 T20 innings of his have been while batting at No. 3 or lower.

Batting outside of the top three, Pollard has scored 14068 runs, with David Miller's 11401 being the next most. Miller, much like Pollard, has been a middle-order batter through his T20 career and has opened only once.

Pollard has scored 5000-plus while batting at both No. 5 and No. 6 - 5172 runs at 5 and 5234 runs at 6. In addition, he also scored 2221 runs while batting at No. 4. Only Pollard and Virat Kohli have scored 5000-plus runs at two different positions in this format, while Miller and Nicholas Pooran are the others with 2000-plus runs at three positions.

Pollard, the globe-trotter

Pollard scored 500-plus runs in nine of the eleven countries where he played T20 games, with New Zealand and Sri Lanka the exceptions. Those two are the only countries where he never played T20 leagues, and Sri Lanka is the only country where he couldn't score a fifty.

No other batter has scored 500-plus runs in more than seven countries, while Pollard and Colin Munro jointly hold the record for scoring 1000-plus runs in five countries.

Pollard has played T20 matches for 23 different teams through his career and scored at least one fifty for 17 of them. He has scored over 500 runs for seven different teams, including 1000 or more runs for four sides.

Another Gayle record in sight

At the age of 39, it is unclear how long Pollard will remain in the franchise circuit, and his latest record could well be surpassed by other players who mostly bat in the top order. However, he could bag another record of Gayle before he retires, the most sixes in T20 history.

Pollard is inching closer to 1000 sixes, having hit 986 of them. Gayle holds the record with 1056 sixes, currently 70 more than Pollard's tally. No other batter - except these two - has hit even 800 sixes.

Pollard is also one of the rare batters to have hit more sixes than fours. He has only 909 fours, which is 77 fewer than the sixes he hit. Only Andre Russell has a bigger difference between his sixes and fours, 149, having hit 635 fours and 784 sixes.

Scoring off Bravo and smashing at death

Pollard has scored 6330 runs in the death overs (17-20) across T20 matches where ball-by-ball (BBB) data is available. It is more than 2000 runs clear of the next batter, Russell (4271). Nearly 45.46% of runs scored by Pollard in matches with BBB data have come in this phase only (6330 out of 13924).

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