All Player of the Tournaments in men's T20 World Cups from 2007 to 2022 ft. Virat Kohli
One-man shows rarely win you World Cups. In five of the eight editions (62.5%) of the men's T20 World Cup, the Player of the Tournament has not been part of the champion side. West Indies, the most successful side in the competition's history, have never had one of their own win the Player of the Tournament.
Below, is the list of all awardees. You can see here the kind of performances some of the legends put in without getting the title. While reading through, try and guess which player in the 2024 edition could recreate one of these performances in the next month.
#2007 Shahid Afridi (Pakistan)
The trend of winning the Player of the Tournament but not the trophy started from the first edition itself. Pakistan all-rounder Shahid Afridi claimed the award in 2007, thanks to his superb all-round performances. He took 12 wickets in seven matches at an average of 15.67, emerging as the joint second-highest wicket-taker.
Adding to it were three brilliant cameos -- 22 (7) against Scotland, 17 (9) against Sri Lanka and 39 (15) against Bangladesh, all of them in wins, as they killed games and made him the X-Factor behind Pakistan's surge to the final. For batters with at least 50 runs in the edition, his strike rate of 197.82 was the best.
Ultimately, a duck and a wicketless spell in the final against India proved to be the difference between the two teams.
#2009 Tillakaratne Dilshan (Sri Lanka)
The inventor of the Dil-scoop, Sri Lanka's Tillakaratne Dilshan was in extraordinary form in the 2009 T20 World Cup. In seven matches, he scored 317 runs at an average of 52.83 and a strike rate of 144.75 (which was extraordinary for such consistency at the time). He crossed 40 in five matches, but recorded two ducks too, including one, like Afridi, in the final against Pakistan that Sri Lanka lost.
In between those two ducks was one of the best T20 knocks of all time, though -- an unbeaten 96* off 57 balls to beat West Indies in the semi-final. And it wasn't a flat track. Dilshan's score made up 60.76% of Sri Lanka's 158/5 in the first innings and West Indies were bundled out for just 101 in the second innings.
#2010 Kevin Pietersen (England)
A lot of Kevin Pietersen's image as one of the best hitters in world cricket comes from his performances against India and Australia in Tests. The 2010 T20 World Cup is often forgotten along with the fact that the swash-buckling Englishman was the first to win the title with the Player of the Tournament award.
He was the second-highest run-scorer in the tournament with 248 runs at an average of 62 and a strike-rate of 137.77. Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene did better with the bat in terms of numbers but Pietersen was more clutch -- scoring, 73*, 53, 42* and 47 in the last four matches of the tournament, often batting through collapses with the best strike rate in his team.
#2012 Shane Watson (Australia)
Shane Watson did all in his power in 2012 to win Australia their first T20 World Cup title but it was just not meant to be. He was the highest run-scorer with 249 runs in six innings and also the second-highest wicket-taker with 11 scalps at an average of 16, and just looked in the best touch of his life.
However, as it often happens, his only failures came in the semi-final and the final where he recorded a total of 15 (23) runs and 1/58 in eight overs. Australia crumbled without him, losing the final to West Indies by a massive 74 runs and making his Player of the Tournament trophy colorless.
#2014 and 2016 Virat Kohli (India)
Fate offers really tough deals to some cricketers. India's ace Virat Kohli won the Player of the Tournament in 2014 and 2016, becoming the first and still the only player with back-to-back such performances and couldn't win the title once.
In both tournaments, his batting average was better than some players' strike rates: 106.33 and 136.50 respectively. He was the highest and second-highest run-scorer, displaying the kind of peak world cricket hadn't seen before.
And unlike others, his best performances were reserved for the difficult games - 72* (44) and 77 (58) in the semi-final and the final in 2014; a miraculous 82* (51) and 89* (47) in the quarter-final and the semi-final in 2016. The team around him was just not good enough to get him what he deserved, twice.
#2021 David Warner (Australia)
This performance was perhaps one of the most satisfying ones for any cricketer. David Warner had just been ousted from the SunRisers Hyderabad as if he wasn't their greatest-ever captain and batter at the time. And he came to the 2021 T20 World Cup just a few weeks later to smash a Player of the Tournament display.
In seven innings, he scored 289 runs at an average of 48.17 with a strike rate of 146.70. Australia were a bit lucky with the toss, which allowed them to get a bit of momentum, but Warner made sure to make the best use of it, 89* (56), 49 (30) and 53 (38) in the last three crunch games of the tournament.
#2022 Sam Curran (England)
England left-arm seamer Sam Curran became the first in the history of T20 World Cups to win a Player of the Tournament award purely on the basis of his bowling. He struggled both before and after that tournament in that format, but in those six matches, he was one of the best T20 bowlers the world had ever seen.
He started the tournament with a spell of 5/10 -- the fourth-best figures in T20 World Cup history -- against Afghanistan. Then, he emerged as the best death overs bowler in the tournament, with his cutters and the use of angles proving impossible to get away at the massive grounds of Australia.
The only game he went wicketless was England's easy win over India in the semi-final. He compensated for that with a match-winning 3/12 in the final against Pakistan,