Live Update: Pretorius 188* breaks Gayle’s record for highest men’s T20 score. The 20-year-old Titans opener scored an unbeaten 188 from 79 balls against the Knights in the CSA T20 Challenge, surpassing Chris Gayle’s 175* in 2013.
Pretorius 188* breaks Gayle’s record for highest men’s T20 score (Photo source: Instagram/Lhuan-dre Pretorius) Lhuan-dre Pretorius rewrote the record books in Bloemfontein on Friday, October 2, posting an unbeaten 188 from 79 deliveries for the Titans against the Knights in the CSA T20 Challenge. The 20-year-old’s first innings now stands as the highest individual score in men’s T20 cricket and he came within 12 runs of what would have been the format’s first double century. The previous record belonged to Chris Gayle, who scored 175 clean sheets for Royal Challengers Bengaluru in an IPL match against the now-defunct Pune Warriors in 2013.
That mark had stood for more than a decade before Pretorius swept it away with a stunning display of crisp hitting while recording his third T20 hundred. Pretorius, a left-handed opener, punished the Knights attack with 13 sixes and 15 fours. Every bowler in the Knights’ lineup has conceded an economy rate of 11 or more.
The Titans scored 267 for 3, the second highest total in CSA T20 Challenge history. The all-time highest team score in the competition is also held by the Titans, 271 for 3, against the same opponents in 2022. The franchise now has the five highest team finishes in the history of the competition.
How quickly did Pretorius reach each milestone? Pretorius wasted no time in asserting himself in the game. He reached fifty in just 24 tosses and then needed just 16 more balls to reach a century, reaching three figures in 40 balls in total.
The 150 mark was reached in 58 deliveries and he finished the game with 188 off 79 balls. In doing so, Pretorius also equaled the record for the longest innings in men’s T20 cricket in terms of balls hit, joining Aaron Finch and Marcus Stoinis with 79 deliveries. This was his 91st pearance in T20 cricket, a format in which he has a career strike rate of 150.44.
What kind of form did Pretorius show in this record-breaking game? Saturday’s game was Pretorius’ first pearance of the 2026-27 CSA T20 Challenge season but he arrived in clean form. In September, he had scored 94 and 101 points respectively in consecutive games against Zimbabwe and Namibia during a tri-series, demonstrating his ability to score high at the top of the order in different conditions.
The Titans vs Knights 2022 match, which still boasts the highest team score in the competition, was also the match in which Dewald Brevis scored 162, the previous record for the highest individual score in the CSA T20 Challenge. Pretorius has now also secured this individual record, giving the Titans control over the competition’s most important hitting benchmarks. Pretorius has played just 22 international matches across all formats, making his dominance in the domestic T20 record books all the more remarkable.
