Scoring a fifty in a T20I is difficult, especially if you aren’t batting in the top-order due to the lack of deliveries. 14 players have managed to get off to the dream start in their T20I career by scoring a fifty. But not everyone is that lucky, some have had to wait for a long time to get their maiden T20I fifty.
So, who has taken the most number of innings to score their maiden T20I fifty? MS Dhoni got his first T20I fifty, a decade after making his debut in the format and unsurprisingly makes this list.
Here are the five players who have taken the most innings to score their maiden fifty in T20Is:
#5 Karim Sadiq (Afghanistan) - 31 innings
At number five on this list is the first of two Afghanistan stars. Keeper Karim Sadiq took 31 innings to score his one and only T20I fifty. Despite batting in the top order for most of his T20I career, Sadiq only managed one fifty in his six-year stint in T20Is.
In his 34 T20Is, the Afghanistan keeper managed just 505 runs at an average of 14.85 and strike rate of just 110. His solitary fifty came in the first match of the qualifying stage of the Asia Cup against United Arab Emirates, which was his 31st T20I innings.
Before that game, his highest score was just 42, but chasing 177 for victory against UAE, Sadiq delivered his career-best T20I performance. Walking in with the score at 9/2 in the third over, he scored a 48-ball 72 that ultimately wasn’t enough to take his side home.
#4 David Miller (South Africa) - 34 innings
Scoring fifties in T20Is isn’t a piece of cake, neither is playing in the middle-order when you have to get used to the tempo and get going immediately. That isn’t why it isn’t surprising that despite his explosive hitting ability South Africa’s David Miller features in fourth place on this list.
Although he has scored 22 T20 fifties in over 200 matches, the southpaw only has a solitary T20I fifty to his name in 49 matches. And his first fifty in the format for South Africa came against Australia in March 2016, just ahead of the 2016 World T20 in his 34th T20I innings.
Chasing 158 for victory, South Africa were in a spot of bother when Miller walked in at 72/4 in the 10th over. Although that soon became 92/6, Miller was a one-man wrecking crew. He smashed a 35-ball 53 that included three fours and sixes apiece and got his side home with four balls to spare.
While it did take 34 innings, Miller’s effort against Australia was certainly worth the wait, especially for his team.
#3 Mohammad Nabi (Afghanistan) - 38 innings
The role of an all-rounder can sometimes be tricky, especially if you are given more opportunities to express yourself in one facet of the game than the other. As one of Afghanistan’s strike bowlers, one can certainly understand why Mohammad Nabi took 38 innings to reach his maiden T20I fifty.
Although he has played more than 50 T20Is, batting in the lower middle-order for a large chunk of his career certainly hasn’t given him too many opportunities to score heavily with the bat. But when he got his chance to come into bat in the ninth over of the 2016 World T20 clash against Zimbabwe in Nagpur, he capitalised on it.
Before being dismissed off the penultimate ball of the Afghanistan innings, Nabi scored his one and only T20I fifty. His 32-ball 52 included four fours and two sixes and helped his side post 186, which was enough to give them a comfortable 59-run win over Zimbabwe.
#2 Gary Wilson (Ireland) - 42 innings
Since the start of 2016, the record for the most innings to score the maiden T20I fifty has been continuously broken. Three times in the space of less two months, the record was broken by three different players in three different tournaments.
Gary Wilson took home the record during the semi-final of the Desert T20 tournament in January 2017, when he scored his maiden T20I fifty against Scotland, after 42 innings in the semi-final of the tournament.
Despite not having an impressive track record in the format, Wilson delivered when it mattered most as he scored a 29-ball 65, which included three sixes and eight fours and was also his career-best score in the format. Although that was his eighth T20 fifty, it was his first in T20Is and thus gave him the record, which unfortunately was broken inside two weeks.
#1 MS Dhoni (India) - 66 innings
There can be little doubting MS Dhoni’s prowess as one of the finest limited-overs finishers to have ever played the game. However, the fact that he always came late in the piece meant that until the third T20I against England, he didn’t have a solitary fifty to his name despite having over 1,000 T20I runs at an average of over 35.
However, after a decade-long T20I career that had spanned 76 matches, MS Dhoni got his maiden T20I fifty in his 66th innings, thereby giving him the world record for the most number of innings to score a maiden T20I fifty, beating Gary Wilson’s mark of 42 innings by a considerable margin.
Walking in at No. 4, MS Dhoni finally had the time to construct a T20I innings as he smashed his career-best T20I score, including his maiden T20I fifty off 32 balls beating his previous-best of 48* against Australia at SCG in 2012.
Although he got out in the final over for 56, he had done enough damage by then to help India post a competitive score, which turned out to be a match-winning one thanks to England’s epic collapse where they lost their last eight wickets for just eight runs.
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