West Indies 2016 T20 World Cup: Carlos Brathwaite's Four Sixes and Marlon Samuels
The most dramatic finish in T20 World Cup history — Carlos Brathwaite hitting four consecutive sixes off Ben Stokes to win the 2016 final for West Indies, and the steadying role of Marlon Samuels's unbeaten 85.
The 2016 ICC Men's T20 World Cup final, played at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on 3 April 2016, produced the most spectacular and improbable finish in the history of the tournament. West Indies, needing 19 runs from the final over bowled by England's Ben Stokes, appeared to have lost. What followed — four consecutive sixes hit by Carlos Brathwaite in a single over — became one of cricket's most replayed and celebrated moments, a victory that required 24 runs in one over to seem even possible, then delivered it with one ball to spare.
The Match Setup: England in Command
England batted first and posted 155/9, a competitive T20 total anchored by Joe Root (54 off 36 balls) and with useful contributions down the order. West Indies's chase began poorly: Chris Gayle fell early, and the power-play overs consumed West Indian wickets faster than runs. By the 13th over, West Indies were struggling at around 70-odd for 4 or 5, and the match seemed to be drifting England's way. What kept West Indies alive — and ultimately set up the final drama — was Marlon Samuels's innings. Batting with mature restraint and selective aggression, Samuels accumulated 85 not out from 66 balls, managing the chase when wickets fell around him and keeping West Indies mathematically alive into the final over. With 6 wickets down and 19 needed from the last over, the requirement was brutal: nearly four sixes from six balls.
Carlos Brathwaite's Final Over
Ben Stokes, England's most experienced death-overs bowler in that squad, bowled the final over to Carlos Brathwaite — a big-hitting all-rounder who had made no previous major impact on the final. Stokes's first delivery was a full-length ball on off stump, the correct ball for the situation. Brathwaite hit it over long-on for six. The second delivery — similar length, slightly wider — again went over the boundary. The third delivery, slightly fuller, disappeared over long-off. With three balls remaining and West Indies now needing just one to win off three balls, Stokes attempted a yorker which arrived slightly too full and again went over the rope: four sixes in four balls, 24 runs in four deliveries. Stokes collapsed to the ground. Brathwaite had not finished — he struck a four off the fifth ball before being dismissed, having won the match with a delivery to spare for Samuels to face. The commentary from Ian Bishop — 'Carlos Brathwaite — remember the name!' — became the enduring soundtrack to the moment.
Samuels's Innings: The Forgotten Anchor
Marlon Samuels's 85 not out was the structural reason why Brathwaite's final over was even possible. Without Samuels keeping West Indies in the chase through the middle overs — managing the strike, finding boundaries when needed, and avoiding the catastrophic collapse that often ends T20 run chases — the equation would have been 40 from three overs, not 19 from one. Samuels was named Player of the Match for an innings that required exactly the type of composed, tactical batting that is less visible than sixes but equally important: he knew he had Brathwaite and Andre Russell to come, and he managed his innings to ensure the chase remained alive. His contribution to West Indian T20 cricket in the 2016 tournament extended beyond the final — he was consistently the most reliable middle-order batter throughout.
Frequently asked questions
How does Brathwaite's finish compare to other famous last-over cricket chases, and what does it reveal about T20 cricket's capacity for sporting drama?
Carlos Brathwaite's four sixes stand as the single most concentrated burst of winning pressure in T20 cricket history — comparable to some Test cricket dramatic finishes but compressed into 16 seconds of actual playing time. Comparisons to other famous finishes: Javed Miandad's last-ball six off Chetan Sharma (1986 Austral-Asia Cup final, Pakistan vs India) is perhaps the most comparable single-ball drama in ODI cricket history, but it required only one six rather than four. Kapil Dev's 175 not out vs Zimbabwe in the 1983 World Cup involved sustained innings pressure. The 2019 World Cup final (covered in a companion article) was arguably more technically dramatic across a longer period. What distinguishes Brathwaite is that the recovery from an apparently hopeless position — 19 from 6, last specialist batter at the crease — was executed over four consecutive deliveries, compressing an entire comeback into under a minute. What T20 cricket's structure enables: the format's most distinctive property is that no score is truly unreachable while wickets remain. A player capable of hitting a cricket ball 90 metres can, in principle, score 24 from one over — the physics allow it. The combination of a hard cricket ball on a flat pitch, modern batting techniques (the switch hit, the lap, the ramp, the helicopter), and player athleticism means that late T20 scenarios that would be mathematically impossible in Test cricket are routinely achievable. This is the format's core dramatic offering: the certainty of eventual result combined with the genuine possibility of reversal at any individual delivery. The psychological dimension: Stokes, who was one of England's most trusted death bowlers at that stage of his career, has described the final over as one of the most difficult experiences of his career — a sequence of correct-to-the-situation deliveries that simply met a more powerful shot. His subsequent career (3 World Cup finals across formats, 1 win as captain in 2022 T20 WC) was shaped partly by that experience. Brathwaite became, almost overnight, one of cricket's most recognisable figures internationally — before the 2016 final, he was a promising all-rounder; after four deliveries, he was part of the sport's permanent history.