2021 T20 World Cup

Result

Player of the Match (Final)

Mitchell Marsh, Australia

Tournament format

First edition officially rebranded the "ICC Men's T20 World Cup" (previously "World Twenty20"); relocated from its original India hosting to the UAE and Oman because of COVID-19 travel restrictions. 16 teams: an 8-team First Round (2 groups) fed 4 survivors into a 12-team "Super 12" stage (2 groups of 6). Semi-finals then a final.

Full match archive

Every match of the 2021 tournament, not just the final — all 44 group-stage, Super 8 and semi-final matches. See all 44 matches →

Final: match context

Australia won their first-ever men's T20 World Cup title, beating New Zealand by 8 wickets in Dubai to finally claim the one global white-ball trophy that had eluded a team otherwise steeped in ICC pedigree across other formats. New Zealand, sent in to bat after Australia won the toss, were carried by captain Kane Williamson's outstanding 85 off 48 balls -- the standout innings of the final. Openers Daryl Mitchell and Martin Guptill gave New Zealand a solid platform before Mitchell fell for 11, and Guptill later added 28 before being dismissed by leg-spinner Adam Zampa. Josh Hazlewood struck twice in the same over late in the innings to remove both Glenn Phillips and Williamson in quick succession, but a late flurry from James Neesham and wicketkeeper Tim Seifert lifted New Zealand to 172 for 4 -- Mitchell Starc's 4 overs alone cost 60 runs, a men's T20 World Cup final record for runs conceded by a single bowler. Australia's chase lost captain Aaron Finch cheaply, out for 5 in the third over, but David Warner and Mitchell Marsh then built the innings' decisive partnership. Warner made 53 off 38 balls before falling to Trent Boult in the 13th over, and Marsh took over from there, finishing unbeaten on 77 off 50 balls. Glenn Maxwell's aggressive unbeaten 28 off 18, capped by the winning boundary off Tim Southee, sealed victory for Australia with seven balls to spare. The title carried real symbolic weight in Australian cricket: for all the country's dominance across Test and one-day cricket, Twenty20 internationals had long been regarded as a relative blind spot, and the 2021 win closed that gap, giving Australia a completed set of white-ball world titles alongside their multiple ODI World Cup crowns. For New Zealand, runners-up again, it extended an era-defining pattern of the team consistently reaching the biggest finals in world cricket without quite closing them out -- a narrative that had already attached to their near-misses in the 2015 and 2019 ODI World Cup finals, even as the team continued to be regarded as one of the most consistently excellent sides in the world across formats. Held in relative isolation during the pandemic, with matches shifted out of India and played in largely reduced crowds across the UAE and Oman, the tournament nonetheless produced a final that stood on its own cricketing merits, headlined by Marsh's career-best innings on the biggest stage.

Sources

• Wikipedia: 2021 Men's T20 World Cup final
• Wikipedia: 2021 Men's T20 World Cup