Cricket is a game with many complexities. A batsman can score runs with the bat in different ways and also lose his wicket in a variety of ways. One such way of accumulating runs for the batsman is to make the ball go over the ropes for a full, resulting in a six for the batsman.
This is the maximum run a batter can possibly hit off a single legal ball, and this is where the excitement adds up in the game of cricket for the viewers but not so for the bowling team.
Indian cricket has seen many technically gifted batters across generations, but at the same time, it has had a lot of flamboyant batters over the last few decades as the game evolved. So here are the top 10 batters with the most sixes for India across formats.
Most Sixes for India across All Formats
| Player | Innings | 6s |
|---|---|---|
| Rohit Sharma | 532 | 637 |
| Mahendra Singh Dhoni | 523 | 352 |
| Virat Kohli | 617 | 306 |
| Sachin Tendulkar | 782 | 264 |
| Yuvraj Singh | 388 | 249 |
| Sourav Ganguly | 485 | 246 |
| Virender Sehwag | 431 | 237 |
| KL Rahul | 248 | 192 |
| Hardik Pandya | 176 | 183 |
| Suresh Raina | 291 | 182 |
Key insights from the above stats
500+: Rohit Sharma leads the list of most sixes ever by an Indian cricketer in international cricket with more than 500 maximums across the formats. The current Indian skipper is known for smashing sixes at will, especially in the game’s shorter formats. Cumulatively, Rohit is second on the list of all-time six-hitters in international cricket, just behind Chris Gayle, who has 553 sixes to his credit.
354: Next up is the former Indian skipper MS Dhoni, who has hit a stunning 354 sixes across formats for India. The keeper-batsman, known to be a fierce striker of the ball in his earlier days, was particularly deadly in the death overs in the shorter formats of the game. His power game allowed him to shift gears at any time, and he stands easily at the top among the best hitters of cricket ever known. Dhoni has also smashed 78 sixes in the Test format to go with his exploits in white-ball.
270+: Another former Indian skipper who is at the top of the list is Kohli. Known to be a technically correct batsman, Virat upped his six-hitting game throughout the course of his career by constantly improving at all junctures. He has won India many games in the T20I format with his display of big-hitting capabilities after getting acclimatised to the crease. In all, the right-hander has hit more than 270 sixes in international cricket.
Also Read | In Focus: Virat Kohli Cover Drive
264: The number of sixes smashed by the legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar during his illustrious 24-year career. The master blaster, like Kohli, was a technically sound player and liked to deal in the form of boundaries (fours). But from time to time, Sachin also displayed his other side of dominance when he was in the mood to hit sixes.
249: Yuvraj Singh was probably the first Indian T20 superstar, and he was known in that way due to his big-hitting exploits at all levels of international cricket. The left-hander, incidentally, is one of the few cricketers to have smashed all 6 balls to a maximum in a given over, and he did so in the inaugural T20 World Cup where he hit 6 sixes in Stuart Broad’s over. In all, the former World Cup-winning cricketer has hit 249 sixes in the course of his impressive career.
