India at the 2026 T20 World Cup: Results, Squad & Stats
Written and checked by CricketTakenPublished Cricket in India12 min read
At 86,824 people, the Narendra Modi Stadium was close to full on 8 March 2026 when Jasprit Bumrah bowled Mitchell Santner to leave New Zealand seven down and the match finished. India had made 255 for 5 and bowled New Zealand out for 159 inside 19 overs. The margin, 96 runs, was the largest India have won a men's T20 World Cup match by, and it arrived in the one match where the margin mattered most.
Three things about that scoreline had never been true before. No side had won three men's T20 World Cups; India now had 2007, 2024 and 2026. No side had defended the trophy. And no host nation had won the men's tournament at home. Sanju Samson's 89 from 46 balls was the highest individual score anyone has made in a final of this competition, and Bumrah's 4 for 15 from four overs were the best figures recorded in one.
None of which was obvious on 22 February, when South Africa beat India by 76 runs in Ahmedabad and India were all out for 111 in a Super Eight match they had been expected to win comfortably. That defeat ended a run of twelve consecutive T20 World Cup wins stretching back into the 2024 campaign and left India needing to beat both Zimbabwe and West Indies to reach the semi-finals. What follows is the whole campaign, in order, with the numbers attached.
Every India match, 7 February to 8 March
| Date | Stage | Venue | Opponent | India | Opponent | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Feb | Group A | Wankhede, Mumbai | USA | 161/9 | 132/8 | India won by 29 runs |
| 12 Feb | Group A | Arun Jaitley, Delhi | Namibia | 209/9 | 116 | India won by 93 runs |
| 15 Feb | Group A | R Premadasa, Colombo | Pakistan | 175/7 | 114 | India won by 61 runs |
| 18 Feb | Group A | Narendra Modi, Ahmedabad | Netherlands | 193/6 | 176/7 | India won by 17 runs |
| 22 Feb | Super Eight | Narendra Modi, Ahmedabad | South Africa | 111 | 187/7 | South Africa won by 76 runs |
| 26 Feb | Super Eight | Chepauk, Chennai | Zimbabwe | 256/4 | 184/6 | India won by 72 runs |
| 1 Mar | Super Eight | Eden Gardens, Kolkata | West Indies | 199/5 | 195/4 | India won by 5 wickets |
| 5 Mar | Semi-final | Wankhede, Mumbai | England | 253/7 | 246/7 | India won by 7 runs |
| 8 Mar | Final | Narendra Modi, Ahmedabad | New Zealand | 255/5 | 159 | India won by 96 runs |
Nine matches, eight wins. India topped Group A with eight points and a net run rate of 2.500, then finished second in Super Eight Group 1 behind South Africa. The one match played outside India was the Pakistan fixture, moved to Colombo under the arrangement that let Pakistan play their share of the tournament on neutral ground.
The fifteen, and the name that was left out
The BCCI named the squad on 20 December 2025. Suryakumar Yadav captained; Axar Patel was made vice-captain, which was the announcement's second story, because the first was that Shubman Gill had been dropped altogether and lost the vice-captaincy with it. Gill had been India's white-ball vice-captain and was left out of a home World Cup squad; the selectors' argument was that the top three picked itself in T20 terms and Gill was not part of it.
| Player | Role |
|---|---|
| Suryakumar Yadav (capt) | Middle-order batter |
| Abhishek Sharma | Opening batter |
| Sanju Samson (wk) | Opening batter, wicketkeeper |
| Ishan Kishan (wk) | Batter, wicketkeeper |
| Tilak Varma | Middle-order batter |
| Rinku Singh | Middle-order batter |
| Shivam Dube | Batting allrounder |
| Hardik Pandya | Allrounder |
| Axar Patel (vice-capt) | Left-arm spin, batter |
| Washington Sundar | Off-spin, batter |
| Kuldeep Yadav | Left-arm wrist spin |
| Varun Chakravarthy | Mystery spin |
| Jasprit Bumrah | Right-arm fast |
| Arshdeep Singh | Left-arm fast |
| Harshit Rana | Right-arm fast |
Two wicketkeepers and four spin options in a fifteen tells you what the selectors expected of Indian and Sri Lankan surfaces in February. Ishan Kishan's recall, after a long spell out of the reckoning, came off the back of a productive Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy season, and he was the batter who held the group stage together.
The group stage, and a record that lasted three weeks
India's opening night at the Wankhede was not comfortable. They were 161 for 9 after being asked to bat, and only Suryakumar Yadav's 84 not out from 49 balls kept the total in a defensible place; the USA were held to 132 for 8. Five days later in Delhi, India made 209 for 9 and bowled Namibia out for 116 — a 93-run win, at the time the biggest India had managed by runs at a men's T20 World Cup. It stood for exactly 24 days before the final beat it.
Colombo, on 15 February, produced the tidiest performance of the four. Ishan Kishan made 77, India reached 175 for 7, and Pakistan were dismissed for 114 in 18 overs with Usman Khan's 44 the only innings of substance. Four Indian bowlers — Bumrah, Axar, Varun Chakravarthy and Hardik Pandya — took two wickets apiece, which is the profile of a bowling attack in which nobody had to do anything unusual. India's record against Pakistan in this competition is set out in more detail in the India–Pakistan rivalry guide.
The Netherlands then took India to 17 runs in Ahmedabad, chasing 194 and finishing on 176 for 7. It was the sort of result that gets filed away as a scare and forgotten, and four days later it looked less like a scare and more like a warning.
Ahmedabad, 22 February: the streak ends at twelve
South Africa were 20 for 3 inside the first four overs, Arshdeep Singh and Bumrah bowling as well as they did all tournament — Bumrah finished with 3 for 15. From there David Miller made 63 from 35 balls and Tristan Stubbs 44 from 24, and South Africa got to 187 for 7, which on that surface was a par-plus total rather than an alarming one.
India were then bowled out for 111 in 18.5 overs. Marco Jansen took 4 for 22 with the new ball and Keshav Maharaj 3 for 24 through the middle; Shivam Dube's 42 was the top score and no other Indian batter passed 20. It was India's first defeat of the tournament and the end of a twelve-match winning run in the competition. It also meant that with two Super Eight matches left, India could not afford another loss.
Chennai and Kolkata: 256, then Samson's 97
The response was the highest team total of the tournament. Sent in at Chepauk on 26 February, India made 256 for 4 with 17 sixes — their most in a T20 World Cup innings — from an innings in which six batters got in and none stayed long: Abhishek Sharma 55, Hardik Pandya 50 not out, Tilak Varma 44 not out, Ishan Kishan 38, Suryakumar Yadav 33. Brian Bennett's 97 not out kept Zimbabwe respectable at 184 for 6, Arshdeep Singh took 3 for 24, and India won by 72.
That set up Eden Gardens on 1 March as a straight elimination match against West Indies. Roston Chase top-scored with 40 as West Indies made 195 for 4. Sanju Samson, who had come into the side late in the tournament, then made 97 not out from 50 balls and India got home with four balls to spare at 199 for 5. Bumrah took two. Gautam Gambhir, coaching the side, later identified that innings as the point at which the campaign turned, and the sequence of Samson's scores from then on makes the case for him.
Wankhede semi-final: 499 runs in forty overs
The second semi-final on 5 March is the highest-scoring match in the history of the men's T20 World Cup: 499 runs and 34 sixes across forty overs. India batted first and made 253 for 7, Samson 89 from 42, Shivam Dube 43, Ishan Kishan 39, with Will Jacks and Adil Rashid each taking two.
England's reply hinged on Jacob Bethell, who made 105 from 48 balls and had England genuinely ahead for a stretch of the chase. They finished on 246 for 7. Hardik Pandya's 2 for 38 in the back end, bowling into a small ground with a wet ball, was the difference of seven runs. England's own account of that tournament sits on the England 2026 T20 World Cup pages; from India's side it was the closest they came to going out after the South Africa defeat.
The final: 255 for 5, and four overs from Bumrah
New Zealand won the toss at Ahmedabad and put India in, which on the evidence of the previous fortnight was a decision with no good version. Abhishek Sharma reached fifty from 18 balls — the fastest in a knockout match at this tournament — and finished with 52 from 21. Ishan Kishan made 54 from 25. Samson's 89 from 46 was the innings that took India from a good total to a record one: 255 for 5 is the highest score made in a men's T20 World Cup final, beating India's own 176 from the 2024 final in Barbados. Jimmy Neesham took 3 for 46.
New Zealand needed the fastest chase in the competition's history and for a while had the right idea, Tim Seifert making 52 from 26. Bumrah then bowled the spell of the tournament — 4 overs, 15 runs, 4 wickets — and Axar Patel took 3 for 27 as New Zealand were bowled out for 159 in the 19th over. Bumrah was player of the match. His method, and why it travels so well to this kind of surface, is covered in the piece on Bumrah's action and yorker.
India's batting and bowling leaders
| Batter | Notable innings in the tournament |
|---|---|
| Sanju Samson | 321 runs from five innings, average 80.25, strike rate 199.37, 24 sixes — player of the tournament |
| Ishan Kishan | 77 v Pakistan, 54 v New Zealand, 39 v England, 38 v Zimbabwe |
| Abhishek Sharma | 55 v Zimbabwe, 52 from 21 balls in the final |
| Suryakumar Yadav | 84 not out v USA, 33 v Zimbabwe |
| Hardik Pandya | 52 from 28 v Namibia, 50 not out v Zimbabwe |
| Shivam Dube | 43 v England, 42 v South Africa |
| Bowler | Return |
|---|---|
| Jasprit Bumrah | 14 wickets in 8 matches — joint leading wicket taker of the tournament; 4/15 in the final, 3/15 v South Africa |
| Varun Chakravarthy | 14 wickets in 9 matches — joint leading wicket taker; 9 of them in his first four games |
| Arshdeep Singh | 3/24 v Zimbabwe, 2/28 v South Africa |
| Axar Patel | 3/27 in the final, 2 wickets v Pakistan |
| Hardik Pandya | 2/38 in the semi-final, 2 wickets v Pakistan |
The two joint leading wicket takers of the whole tournament were both Indian, and they are about as different as two bowlers can be. Samson's 321 came from five innings, not nine: he was not a first-choice pick at the start of the competition, which makes the player-of-the-tournament award unusual in kind as well as in timing.
Five things the numbers show
India hit 106 sixes across the tournament and became the first side to pass a hundred in a single edition. That is not a by-product of one big innings — it is spread across 256 for 4 at Chennai, 253 for 7 at the Wankhede and 255 for 5 in the final, three of the four highest totals India have made in this competition, all inside eleven days.
The one defeat is the most informative match of the nine. India's batting was exposed at 111 all out by two bowlers doing conventional things well: left-arm seam swinging away from the right-handers, and orthodox left-arm spin turning into them. Every other opponent tried to match India's scoring rate and lost by a distance.
Sanju Samson's tournament aggregate came at a strike rate just under 200 across five innings, all of them in the knockout half of the draw. It is the clearest recent case of an Indian selection call being reversed mid-tournament and immediately vindicated. His T20I record before and after is set out in his T20I hundreds and 2026 campaign profile.
Bumrah played eight of the nine matches and took 14 wickets, which is a workload India have generally protected him from. His economy in the final — 3.75 an over in a match where 414 runs were scored — is the single most disproportionate individual return of the tournament.
Finally, the 93-run win over Namibia on 12 February was reported as India's biggest men's T20 World Cup victory by runs. It was superseded on 8 March. A record set and broken by the same team inside one tournament is a reasonable summary of how far ahead of the field India's batting was in February and March 2026.
India's earlier campaigns in this competition, including the 2022 semi-final exit in Adelaide and the 2024 title in Barbados, give the run-up to this one; the full T20 World Cup hub covers every edition, and the wider picture of how India came to play this way is in the T20 international history of Indian cricket. Everything else about the game in the country sits under cricket in India.
Sources and method
Match scores, margins, venues and dates are taken from ICC tournament records and cross-checked against ESPNcricinfo scorecards for the 2026 men's T20 World Cup. Squad composition and the December 2025 announcement are from BCCI releases and contemporaneous reporting. Individual aggregates for Sanju Samson (321 runs, average 80.25, strike rate 199.37) and the joint leading wicket takers (Bumrah and Chakravarthy, 14 each) are the ICC's published tournament figures.
Records described as firsts — three titles, a successful defence, a host winning at home, the highest final total, the highest individual score in a final — are as stated in the ICC's own end-of-tournament records summary and refer to the men's competition only. Figures are as of the tournament's conclusion on 8 March 2026 and were re-checked in August 2026.
Where a batting or bowling table lists "notable innings" rather than a full aggregate, that is because a complete per-player tournament total could not be verified from a primary source for every member of the squad. Those rows are individual match figures, not season aggregates, and are labelled as such rather than being estimated.