Fastest Century in Cricket (Every Format)

The fastest century in cricket depends on which format you mean. In one-day internationals, AB de Villiers holds the record with a 31-ball hundred against the West Indies in 2015. In all Twenty20 cricket, Chris Gayle’s 30-ball century for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the 2013 IPL is the quickest. And in Test cricket, Brendon McCullum’s 54-ball hundred in 2016 leads.

Comparing them directly is a mistake, because the formats reward different things — a T20 batter swings from the first ball, a Test batter almost never does. Each record sits in its own context. Below is a format-by-format breakdown of the fastest hundreds and how each one was made.

Fastest ODI century: AB de Villiers, 31 balls

The fastest one-day international century belongs to AB de Villiers, who reached 100 off 31 balls against the West Indies at the Wanderers in Johannesburg in January 2015. He went on to make 149 from just 44 deliveries.

Balls	Batter	Opponent	Year
31	AB de Villiers (RSA)	West Indies	2015
36	Corey Anderson (NZ)	West Indies	2014
37	Shahid Afridi (PAK)	Sri Lanka	1996

De Villiers came in with South Africa already well set and simply attacked from the first ball, clearing the ropes at will. Corey Anderson’s 36-ball effort had held the record for barely a year before de Villiers took it, and Shahid Afridi’s 37-ball hundred as a teenager in 1996 stood for 18 years before that.

Fastest T20 century: Chris Gayle, 30 balls

The quickest hundred in any top-level Twenty20 match is Chris Gayle’s 30-ball century for Royal Challengers Bangalore against Pune Warriors in the 2013 IPL. He finished on 175 not out from 66 balls, still one of the highest individual T20 scores.

At international level, the fastest T20I hundred among the leading nations is 35 balls, achieved by both David Miller of South Africa and Rohit Sharma of India in 2017. Associate-nation batters have since posted faster T20I centuries against weaker attacks, but the 35-ball mark remains the reference point among full-member teams, and Gayle’s 30 is the outright fastest in a major competition.

Fastest Test century: Brendon McCullum, 54 balls

The fastest century in Test cricket is Brendon McCullum’s 54-ball hundred against Australia at Christchurch in February 2016. It came in his farewell Test, and it broke a record of 56 balls that Viv Richards had set in 1986 and Misbah-ul-Haq had equalled in 2014.

Balls	Batter	Opponent	Year
54	Brendon McCullum (NZ)	Australia	2016
56	Viv Richards (WI)	England	1986
56	Misbah-ul-Haq (PAK)	Australia	2014
57	Adam Gilchrist (AUS)	England	2006

That a 54-ball hundred is the Test record, against 30 and 31 in the shorter formats, shows how differently the game is played across five days. A Test batter attacking from the outset is rare enough that the fastest hundred is nearly twice as slow as its limited-overs equivalent.

Why the record splits by format

Balls faced is the fair measure because it strips out over rates, weather and how fast the opposition bowls. That is why every record here is counted in deliveries rather than minutes, the older method once used in Tests.

The three formats reward opposite instincts. Twenty20 asks a batter to swing from ball one; a Test rewards patience, so a genuine assault is unusual and a 54-ball hundred stands out. One-day cricket sits between the two, which is why de Villiers’ 31-ball record is closer to Gayle’s 30 than to McCullum’s 54. Reading the records side by side is really reading three different games.

The batters behind the records

De Villiers, Gayle and McCullum were all attacking players who changed what a scoring rate could be in their format. Gayle’s power at the top of a T20 innings, de Villiers’ range of strokes all around the wicket, and McCullum’s decision to take Test cricket on at limited-overs tempo each pushed a record into new territory.

For more on the hardest hitters in the modern game, see our list of the most dangerous hard-hitters in cricket, and for the batter who has scored the most in franchise cricket, see the most IPL runs of all time. Thirty-one balls in an ODI, 30 in T20 and 54 in a Test — three records, three different games.