Fastest Century in Cricket: Test, ODI and T20I Records
The fastest century in international cricket depends on the format. In T20Is the record is 27 balls, in ODIs it is 31 balls, and in Test cricket it is 54 balls. Here are the record holders in each format and the stories behind them.
The records at a glance
| Format | Balls | Player | Against | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| T20I (men) | 27 | Sahil Chauhan (Estonia) | Cyprus | 2024 |
| ODI (men) | 31 | AB de Villiers (South Africa) | West Indies | 2015 |
| Test (men) | 54 | Brendon McCullum (New Zealand) | Australia | 2016 |
| ODI (women) | 45 | Meg Lanning (Australia) | New Zealand | 2012 |
T20I: Sahil Chauhan, 27 balls
On 17 June 2024, Estonia's Sahil Chauhan reached 100 in just 27 balls against Cyprus in Episkopi. He finished on 144 not out from 41 balls with 18 sixes. It was the first sub-30-ball hundred in T20 history and beat the previous record of 33 balls, set by Namibia's Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton earlier the same year.
Among the leading cricket nations, the fastest T20I hundreds were long held by David Miller and Rohit Sharma, who both needed 35 balls in 2017. At the 2026 T20 World Cup, New Zealand's Finn Allen hit a 33-ball hundred against South Africa in the semi-final, the fastest in T20 World Cup history, breaking Chris Gayle's 47-ball record from 2016.
ODI: AB de Villiers, 31 balls
In January 2015 at the Wanderers in Johannesburg, AB de Villiers came in late against West Indies and scored 149 from 44 balls with 16 sixes. He reached 50 in 16 balls and 100 in 31, records that still stand. Before him, Corey Anderson held the record with 36 balls, and before that Shahid Afridi's 37-ball hundred from 1996 stood for 17 years.
See the full top 10 and the fastest hundred for every team in our list of the fastest centuries in ODI cricket.
Test: Brendon McCullum, 54 balls
In his final Test, against Australia in Christchurch in February 2016, Brendon McCullum hit a hundred in 54 balls. It broke the record of 56 balls shared by Sir Viv Richards, who did it against England in Antigua in 1986, and Misbah-ul-Haq, who matched it against Australia in Abu Dhabi in 2014.
A Test hundred this fast is rare because there are no fielding restrictions, so the captain can put as many fielders on the boundary as he wants.
Women's cricket
Meg Lanning's 45-ball hundred for Australia against New Zealand in 2012 is the fastest in women's ODIs. In 2025, India's Smriti Mandhana scored the second fastest, in 50 balls against Australia, which is also the fastest ODI hundred by any Indian player.
Why the formats differ so much
- Fielding restrictions: T20 and ODI cricket limit fielders outside the 30-yard circle, especially in the powerplay. Tests have no such limits.
- Match situation: in a T20 every batter is expected to attack from the first ball. In a Test, batters usually build an innings over hours.
- Opposition: several of the fastest T20I hundreds were scored against teams from smaller cricket nations, which is why statisticians often list the records for the leading nations separately.
Try hitting sixes yourself in the Super Over game, or read about the most sixes in international cricket and the highest individual scores in ODIs.