4 times a batsman scored at least as many runs as the opposition in a T20I
Twenty20 is the most closely contested of all the formats of Cricket. And why not? It is a game where each team faces a maximum of only 120 balls and thus, has little opportunity to break away and go very far ahead, as is the case in Test Cricket. Teams can grind down the opposition in the longer formats of the game, but in T20, all it takes is one ball to change the balance of the game.
In the 336 T20Is won by the team batting first, as many as 74, or 22%, have been won by a margin of 10 runs or less. In ODIs, this same statistic falls to nearly half- 11.6%. Given how tightly contested and volatile the format is, it takes a supreme effort for just one batsman to single-handedly match the entire opposition.
Here are 4 instances when a batsman actually managed it in T20Is:
#1 Hamilton Masakadza vs Canada, 2008
Zimbabwe 184/5 (Masakadza 79, Chibhabha 40) beat Canada 75 (Utseya 3/26) by 109 runs
Playing in a quadrangular tournament with Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Canada, Zimbabwe must have known that their only respite would be against the hosts, Canada. However, in the first matchup between the two sides, Canada almost pulled the rug from under the African team's feet by tieing the game.
When the two sides met again in the second leg of the tournament, Masakadza, like the previous game, lost his opening partner for a duck. But, this time he took it upon himself to decimate the Home Team's bowling. A 79 laced with 8 shots to the fence and 3 over it took Zimbabwe to 184/5, before Prosper Utseya and Ray Price spun webs around the Canadian batsman bowling them out for 75- four runs short of Masakadza.