The ICC Men's T20 World Cup is the international championship of Twenty20 (T20) cricket. A Twenty20 International (T20I) is an international cricket match between two teams, each having T20I status, as determined by the International Cricket Council (ICC), the sport's world governing body. In a T20I, each team plays single innings, which is restricted to a maximum of 20 overs. In cricket, a player is said to have completed a century when he scores 100 or more runs in a single innings. As of the 2026 ICC Men's T20 World Cup, the most recent to take place, sixteen batsmen have scored eighteen centuries in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup.
The first century in an ICC Men's T20 World Cup match was scored by Chris Gayle of the West Indies. He achieved the feat in the inaugural match of the first Men's T20 World Cup (then called the World Twenty20) against the hosts South Africa on 11 September 2007. He scored 117 runs in 57 balls at Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg. This century also made him the first player to score a century in all three formats of international cricket. With his two centuries, he remains one of only two batsmen to have scored more than one century in the championship, along with Sahibzada Farhan of Pakistan. Gayle's 117 runs remained the highest individual score in the Men's T20 World Cup for almost five years until Brendon McCullum of New Zealand broke it during the 2012 edition. He scored 123 runs in 58 balls against Bangladesh at Pallekele Stadium, Kandy, on 21 September 2012. The second and third batsmen to score a century in the championship were Suresh Raina of India and Mahela Jayawardene of Sri Lanka respectively, both during the 2010 ICC Men's T20 World Cup. Their respective centuries helped them to achieve the feat of scoring a century in all the international formats of the game, only previously achieved by Gayle and McCullum.