India T20I Closest wins by runs: Match Records
Written and checked by CricketTakenPublished Cricket in India10 min read
India have twice won a men's T20 international by a single run. Both came at World T20s, four years apart, and both hinged on the final over of the chase. At the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo on 2 October 2012, South Africa were bowled out for 151 in reply to 152 for 6 when Lakshmipathy Balaji knocked over Morne Morkel with two needed. At the Chinnaswamy in Bengaluru on 23 March 2016, Bangladesh reached 145 for 9 chasing 147 after losing three wickets in the last three balls of the match.
Neither win did India as much good as the scoreline suggests. The Colombo one-run margin was not enough to keep India in the 2012 tournament; the Bengaluru one kept them in the 2016 one and is remembered mainly for the three balls that ended it.
Twenty-one India wins have come by eleven runs or fewer, which works out at roughly a fifth of the 105 victories India have recorded batting first. The list below is every one of them.
India's narrowest T20I wins batting first
Margins are as given on the scorecard. Where Duckworth-Lewis-Stern applied, the opposition's score is shown against the revised target rather than India's full total.
| Margin | India's innings | Opposition reply | Opponent | Venue | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 run | 152/6 (20.0) | 151 (19.5) | South Africa | Colombo (RPS) | 2 Oct 2012 |
| 1 run | 146/7 (20.0) | 145/9 (20.0) | Bangladesh | Bengaluru | 23 Mar 2016 |
| 2 runs | 162/5 (20.0) | 160 (20.0) | Sri Lanka | Wankhede | 3 Jan 2023 |
| 2 runs (DLS) | 47/2 (6.5) | 139/7 (20.0) | Ireland | Dublin (Malahide) | 18 Aug 2023 |
| 3 runs | 138/6 (20.0) | 135/6 (20.0) | Zimbabwe | Harare | 22 Jun 2016 |
| 4 runs | 225/7 (20.0) | 221/5 (20.0) | Ireland | Dublin (Malahide) | 28 Jun 2022 |
| 5 runs | 157/5 (20.0) | 152 (19.3) | Pakistan | Johannesburg | 24 Sep 2007 |
| 5 runs | 144/8 (20.0) | 139/6 (20.0) | England | Nagpur | 29 Jan 2017 |
| 5 runs (DLS) | 184/6 (20.0) | 145/6 (16.0) | Bangladesh | Adelaide | 2 Nov 2022 |
| 6 runs | 67/5 (8.0) | 61/6 (8.0) | New Zealand | Thiruvananthapuram | 7 Nov 2017 |
| 6 runs | 160/8 (20.0) | 154/8 (20.0) | Australia | Bengaluru | 3 Dec 2023 |
| 6 runs | 119 (19.0) | 113/7 (20.0) | Pakistan | New York | 9 Jun 2024 |
| 7 runs | 172/7 (20.0) | 165/6 (20.0) | South Africa | Cape Town | 24 Feb 2018 |
| 7 runs | 163/3 (20.0) | 156/9 (20.0) | New Zealand | Mount Maunganui | 2 Feb 2020 |
| 7 runs | 176/7 (20.0) | 169/8 (20.0) | South Africa | Bridgetown | 29 Jun 2024 |
| 7 runs | 253/7 (20.0) | 246/7 (20.0) | England | Wankhede | 5 Mar 2026 |
| 8 runs | 185/8 (20.0) | 177/8 (20.0) | England | Ahmedabad | 18 Mar 2021 |
| 8 runs | 186/5 (20.0) | 178/3 (20.0) | West Indies | Eden Gardens | 18 Feb 2022 |
| 11 runs | 192/5 (20.0) | 181/7 (20.0) | Pakistan | Ahmedabad | 28 Dec 2012 |
| 11 runs | 161/7 (20.0) | 150/7 (20.0) | Australia | Canberra | 4 Dec 2020 |
| 11 runs | 219/6 (20.0) | 208/7 (20.0) | South Africa | Centurion | 13 Nov 2024 |
There is no nine-run or ten-run win anywhere in India's record. The gap between the 8 at Eden Gardens in February 2022 and the 11 at Ahmedabad a decade earlier is the only such hole in the sequence from one to twenty.
Colombo 2012: winning the match and losing the tournament
India came to the Premadasa needing more than a win. Australia had beaten them heavily earlier in the Super Eights, and to overhaul South Africa on net run rate India had to hold them to 121 or fewer — a margin of 31 runs or better.
Suresh Raina's 45 from 34 was the top score in 152 for 6 and Faf du Plessis then made 65 for South Africa. Zaheer Khan took three for 22 and Balaji three for 37 in a spell that ended with Morkel bowled off the fifth ball of the twentieth over. India had their one-run win, their fourth in five matches at the tournament, and were out of it along with the side they had just beaten.
Bengaluru 2016: three wickets in three balls
Bangladesh needed 11 from Hardik Pandya's final over at the Chinnaswamy. Mushfiqur Rahim struck two fours to bring it down to two from three balls, and then lost his wicket to a mistimed pull. Mahmudullah holed out next ball. Off the last, Shuvagata Hom missed a swing across the line, set off anyway, and MS Dhoni — one glove already removed — ran him out at the striker's end.
Ravichandran Ashwin's two for 20 and Ravindra Jadeja's two for 22 had kept the target within reach in the first place. India's 146 for 7 was thin on a ground that had produced far bigger scores earlier in the tournament, and the defence of it is dealt with from the bowling side on the lowest India T20I totals defended page. Their run through that tournament is covered on the 2016 T20 World Cup page.
The Wankhede two, and a debutant's four wickets
Sri Lanka needed 163 at the Wankhede on 3 January 2023 and finished on 160 all out. Shivam Mavi, playing his first international match, took four for 22; Umran Malik and Harshal Patel took two each. India's innings had been a collection of small contributions — Deepak Hooda 41 not out, Ishan Kishan 37, Axar Patel 31 not out — with nobody past fifty.
That was Hardik Pandya's first match as India's full-time T20I captain, and it turned on the last two overs, in which Sri Lanka lost four wickets. The fixture's longer arc is on the India versus Sri Lanka T20I record page.
Malahide: the only close win that was decided by rain
The two-run margin at Dublin in August 2023 is the one entry here that India did not have to bowl out. Ireland made 139 for 7 — Jasprit Bumrah, Ravi Bishnoi and Prasidh Krishna took two apiece — and India were 47 for 2 after 6.5 overs, two ahead of the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern par score, when the rain that had been circling all evening ended the match.
Yashasvi Jaiswal had made 24 and Ruturaj Gaikwad was 19 not out. A two-run win on a par comparison is a different animal from a two-run win with a ball left, and the table flags it rather than hiding it.
By contrast, the four-run win at the same ground in June 2022 was a shootout: Deepak Hooda's 104 from 57 balls and Sanju Samson's 77 lifted India to 225 for 7, and Ireland answered with 221 for 5. That remains the highest-scoring narrow win on the list by some distance.
Johannesburg 2007: five runs and a trophy
The most consequential of these is the fifth-narrowest. India's 157 for 5 in the World T20 final at the Wanderers on 24 September 2007 was built on Gautam Gambhir's 75 from 54 balls and Rohit Sharma's unbeaten 30. Pakistan were 152 all out with three balls unused, Misbah-ul-Haq scooping Joginder Sharma to short fine leg.
Irfan Pathan took three for 16 and RP Singh three for 26, and Joginder — who had gone for 20 in his three and a half overs — took the last two wickets. India have won World Cup matches by wider margins and none by a more repeated one; the tournament as a whole is on the 2007 T20 World Cup page, and the fixture's history on the India versus Pakistan T20I record page.
When and against whom the tight ones happen
| Period | Wins by 11 runs or fewer | All wins batting first |
|---|---|---|
| 2006-2012 | 3 | 13 |
| 2013-2017 | 4 | 14 |
| 2018-2022 | 7 | 35 |
| 2023-2026 | 7 | 43 |
The proportion falls as the sample grows: close to one in four early on, closer to one in six now. Bigger first-innings totals are the reason. A side defending 220 is rarely defending it by five.
South Africa are the most frequent victims with four, then England and Pakistan with three apiece. Australia, New Zealand, Bangladesh and Ireland each appear twice. Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and West Indies appear once. Nine of the twenty-one came outside India, which is a slightly higher share than India's overall home-away split in the format.
The other end of the ledger
India have lost twelve men's T20 internationals by eleven runs or fewer, three of them by a single run. Set against twenty-one wins in the same band, the record in very tight finishes is closer to even than India's overall win percentage would predict.
| Margin | Opposition innings | India's innings | Opponent | Venue | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 run | 167/5 (20.0) | 166/4 (20.0) | New Zealand | Chennai | 11 Sep 2012 |
| 1 run | 245/6 (20.0) | 244/4 (20.0) | West Indies | Lauderhill | 27 Aug 2016 |
| 1 run | 154/8 (20.0) | 153/9 (20.0) | Ireland | Belfast | 28 Jun 2026 |
| 2 runs | 170/6 (20.0) | 168/6 (20.0) | Zimbabwe | Harare | 18 Jun 2016 |
| 3 runs | 153/7 (20.0) | 150/5 (20.0) | England | Lord's | 14 Jun 2009 |
| 3 runs | 180/7 (20.0) | 177/5 (20.0) | England | Birmingham | 7 Sep 2014 |
| 4 runs (DLS) | 158/4 (17.0) | 169/7 (17.0) | Australia | Brisbane | 21 Nov 2018 |
| 4 runs | 212/4 (20.0) | 208/6 (20.0) | New Zealand | Hamilton | 10 Feb 2019 |
| 4 runs | 149/6 (20.0) | 145/9 (20.0) | West Indies | Tarouba | 3 Aug 2023 |
| 10 runs | 190 (20.0) | 180/9 (20.0) | New Zealand | Johannesburg | 16 Sep 2007 |
| 10 runs | 145/7 (20.0) | 135/9 (20.0) | Zimbabwe | Harare | 19 Jul 2015 |
| 11 runs (DLS) | 219/4 (20.0) | 71/0 (7.5) | South Africa | Johannesburg | 30 Mar 2012 |
New Zealand account for three of the twelve and are the only side to have beaten India by fewer than five runs twice. The Lauderhill defeat of August 2016 is the oddity of the group: chasing 246, India made 244 for 4, which was then the highest total they had ever posted in the format, and KL Rahul's 110 not out from 51 balls went down as a losing hundred.
Three readings the table does not offer
The close ones are not a bowling-attack story. Exactly one of the twenty-one featured a four-wicket haul by an Indian bowler — Mavi's, on debut — and in eighteen of them the opposition finished with wickets still in hand. What decides these matches is the last two overs of the chase rather than a breakthrough spell earlier, which is why the names attached to them are so often part-time captaincy choices and death-overs specialists rather than the leading wicket-takers.
Both of India's men's T20 World Cup titles were won by a margin on this list. The 2007 final at Johannesburg went by five runs and the 2024 final at Bridgetown by seven, Hardik Pandya taking three for 20 as South Africa fell from a winning position. Six of the twenty-one in all came at T20 World Cups, a share far above what the fixture list alone would give.
The 253 for 7 against England at the Wankhede in March 2026, defended by seven, is the largest total India have had to hang on to. It sits on this list and would sit comfortably on a list of their biggest scores as well, which is the clearest sign of how far par has moved. The same period's failures are collected on the lowest completed India T20I totals page, the wide margins on the biggest India T20I wins by runs page, and the format's development in Indian hands on the T20 international history page. Broader coverage starts from the cricket in India hub.
Sources and method
Margins, innings totals and individual figures are taken from the scorecards of India's men's T20 internationals, cross-checked against ESPNcricinfo's Statsguru match-results list filtered to India wins with a runs margin. The cut-off of eleven runs is set by the data rather than chosen: it is the largest margin below the first natural gap in the sequence.
The two Duckworth-Lewis-Stern results are labelled in the table. Both were genuine wins with a runs margin recorded on the scorecard, so both belong here, but a par-score margin and a bowled-out margin measure different things and readers should treat them separately.
Accounts of how individual matches finished rest on contemporary ball-by-ball records and match reports; where a passage describes a sequence of deliveries it is descriptive, not derived from any figure in the tables above. Records are current to 19 August 2026.