Best Finisher in Cricket: All-Time and Format-wise Rankings

A perfect finish in cricket doesn’t look heroic until the last five minutes. Then suddenly, the geometry of the field makes sense, the bowler’s options shrink, and someone calm in a storm takes all the oxygen out of the stadium. It’s not the six; it’s the cold, clean decision to let the slower ball go, to turn the strike at precisely the right moment, to hit the gap that everyone else missed. This role has a name now: the finisher. And it’s become one of the hardest jobs in professional sport.

I’ve spent years reporting from dugouts and nets, sitting through team debriefs and running the numbers after midnight. The very best finishers are a rare cocktail: ruthless against yorkers, inventive against pace-off, patient enough to bat deep, aggressive enough to end it in a single over. Most listicles throw up a top ten. This one starts with a definition and a scoring model, then ranks the best finishers in cricket history, the best by format and league, country-wise leaders, and the current standard-bearers across men’s and women’s cricket.

What is a Finisher? Role and Methodology

Role definition

• Format and phase:
  • ODI: Primarily overs 41–50, often with the chase in sight or a total to launch. Batters at positions 5–7 are most commonly tasked to close.
  • T20: Overs 16–20 with a steep required rate; in leagues, many teams hold a designated closer for these overs.
  • Tests: The role is more about fourth-innings composure than power, but closing a tense chase from middle-to-lower order is a finisher’s craft in whites too.
• Outcome orientation:
  • In chases, the finisher must convert opportunities into wins, often prioritizing not getting out over shot exhibition early, before flipping the switch late.
  • In first innings, the finisher must maximize the last five overs: boundary percentage up, dot-ball percentage down, strike rate sustained under extreme risk.
• Skills mix:
  • Yorker access (baseball-style barrel control), strong wrists for low full tosses, use of crease against length changes, and sweeps/ramps to mess with lengths.
  • Elite running between wickets, field-reading, and matchups (identifying the over to target and the bowler to avoid).

Data sources and filters

• Datasets: International ODIs and T20Is; IPL and major T20 leagues (BBL, PSL, CPL, SA20, ILT20, The Hundred); women’s internationals and premier leagues.
• Filters:
  • Minimum innings at 5–7 in ODIs/T20s to avoid top-order inflation.
  • Chase-specific splits: only innings where the batter batted in the second innings.
  • Death overs splits: 41–50 in ODIs; 16–20 in T20s.
  • Knockouts and playoffs weighted higher.
  • Away/neutral venues weighted higher than home.
  • Opposition quality: elite attacks weighted higher.

Core metrics in the Finisher Index

• Death overs strike rate (DOSR): Run rate under time pressure at the death.
• Average in successful chases (ASC): How often the batter carried or set up a win without throwing it away.
• Not-out percentage in chases (NOPC): Survival in winning efforts; a proxy for game management.
• Boundary percentage at the death (BPD) and dot-ball percentage (DBP): Pressure management. The best finishers shrink dots and expand boundaries.
• Finishing percentage (FP, custom): The share of chases where the batter:
  • Was at the crease when the win happened, or
  • Scored a decisive, above-rate cameo (for ODIs: strike rate well above match rate; for T20: strike rate comfortably above par) in the last third of the innings.
• Win Probability Added (WPA) or Clutch Index: Modeled change in team win probability while the batter was at the crease in the last phase. If a team was 25 percent to win when the finisher arrived and 85 percent at the handshake, that’s major WPA.
• Role context score (RCS): Adjusts for batting position and balls faced. Not all 20 off 6s are created equal; a 20 that turns a 10-per-over ask into a run-a-ball is worth more than it looks.

Weighting in the Finisher Index

• ASC and NOPC: 30 percent combined
• DOSR and BPD/DBP: 25 percent combined
• FP: 15 percent
• WPA/Clutch: 20 percent
• Knockouts and playoffs: 5 percent
• Away/neutral and opposition quality: 5 percent

The weights emphasize chasing excellence and endgame destruction without ignoring survival and situational intelligence. All inputs are normalized per format, then aggregated into a single Finisher Index used across this article.

The Verdict: Who Is the Best Finisher in Cricket?

MS Dhoni sits atop the mountain. He is the No. 1 finisher in world cricket across eras when you combine ODI, T20I and league impact. The case isn’t built on nostalgia or myth; it’s built on repeatability under pressure.

• Chase masterclass: Dhoni’s average in successful ODI chases sits in the stratosphere, lifted by a preposterous not-out profile. He was the batter you wanted walking in with a fast-rising required rate, because he rarely blinked first. He was greedy for wickets in hand, then violent when the window opened.
• Death overs control: In ODIs, his death-overs strike rate lands in the top bracket among high-volume batters who finished at 5–7, while his dot-ball percentage remained unusually low for a power player. In T20s, he carried an almost unfair aura in overs 19 and 20—fielders went deeper, bowlers went wider, and he still found a way.
• Tactics: He read fields better than most captains. He hunted the big over rather than trying to win every over, an approach copied across T20 leagues since. He let bowlers make the first mistake and punished it with those helicopter wrists designed for yorkers and pace-off angles.
• Knockout temperament: On the biggest nights, the noise never shook him. He didn’t care if a six came in the 49th or three twos did; he cared that the handshake happened.

Other players hit it further. Others have higher isolated strike rates. But nobody combined survival, timing, and finishing percentage—across so many formats—for so long. If you’re hunting a single name to answer who is the greatest finisher in cricket history, that name is MS Dhoni.

All-Time Top 15 Finishers (Overall)

This is the composite list, combining ODI and T20I numbers with T20 league impact. Role and context have been considered. Think of this as the hall-of-finishers, ranked on the Finisher Index and long-view assessment.

1. MS Dhoni
   • Signature: Calm chases, helicopter through the arc, brain over brawn until brawn is needed.
   • Why here: ASC off the charts, elite NOPC in chases, low DBP in death overs, match-winning WPA in tense finishes, and ringmaster at knockouts.
2. AB de Villiers
   • Signature: 360-degree access, pace or spin no matter, reverse sweeps to third man death fields.
   • Why here: DOSR in ODIs is absurd, T20 leagues testify to his ball-striking in overs 16–20, and finishing percentage in mixed situations holds up. Slightly lower NOPC in chases than Dhoni, which is the tie-breaker.
3. Michael Bevan
   • Signature: Chase surgeon, especially in ODIs. Minimal risk, maximum control, gaps for twos that didn’t exist for others.
   • Why here: All-time ODI chase stabilizer. Strike rate lower than modern power finishers, but ASC and NOPC are generational. Wins via accumulation and angle mastery in the pre-slog power era.
4. Lance Klusener
   • Signature: Left-handed thunder at the death; violent bat speed; low full tosses punished.
   • Why here: One of the most destructive ODI death hitters ever in a global event and beyond. Smaller sample than the giants above, but DOSR and BPD at their peak push him to mythical status.
5. Kieron Pollard
   • Signature: Flat power, skimming sixes, instincts for the big over; intimidation factor.
   • Why here: T20 leagues are covered in his fingerprints. DOSR in leagues, especially IPL and CPL, sits among the best; BPD massive; FP high. ODI impact solid; T20 impact phenomenal.
6. Andre Russell
   • Signature: Bat speed that breaks calculations; length balls disappear; mishit still travels.
   • Why here: The highest T20 death-overs strike rate over large volumes in league play, with outrageous WPA spikes from hopeless states. Lower NOPC than Pollard and Dhoni leaves him just behind.
7. Jos Buttler
   • Signature: Composure, range hitting, and rhythmic acceleration. Flicks pace, mauls spin.
   • Why here: ODI finishing improved steadily; T20I DOSR elite; league finishing and chases strong. A rare opener-finisher hybrid who still closes plenty of innings.
8. David Miller
   • Signature: Hits length like a bowling machine, chills in chases, growth curve upward.
   • Why here: Long run of T20 and ODI finishing success; NOPC healthy; DOSR reliably elite; league knockouts stacked with match-turners.
9. Ben Stokes
   • Signature: Iron will. Takes the heat, stays till the end. Heavy hands, big lungs.
   • Why here: Test and ODI clutch combined with short-format closing stints raise his composite score. WPA at crunch time is towering. Not a pure death specialist, but a finisher in the truest sense.
10. Glenn Maxwell
    • Signature: Improvisation meets power. Pace-off killer; sweeps pace; resets fields.
    • Why here: In T20I and leagues he flips hopeless scripts; ODI death hitting eye-watering on his day. Variance higher than Miller/Buttler, but the ceiling is skyscraper-high.
11. Dinesh Karthik
    • Signature: Late cameos, control of depth of crease, skills against pace-off; late bloom.
    • Why here: T20 finishing clinic across IPL and international phases; DOSR elite in short bursts; one of the best “10-ball specialists” to ever do it.
12. Hardik Pandya
    • Signature: Hits hard lengths down the ground, lifts full pace straight, calm in last overs.
    • Why here: T20 and ODI finishing numbers strong post role clarity; FP high in league chases; matchup reading improved him into a bankable closer.
13. Ravindra Jadeja
    • Signature: Late-order serenity; busy hands for twos; surprise finishing punches straight.
    • Why here: High FP and NOPC in chases; critical league finishes, especially when others burned resources; bowling adds holistic value but it’s the calm finishing that earns this spot.
14. Virat Kohli
    • Signature: Chasing, not necessarily “death overs” in a pure sense. Still closes with relentless control.
    • Why here: The greatest ODI chaser of the modern era by volume and average at No. 3. Less a death hitter, more a victory arranger. Finisher? He’s the best at setting the runway and often landing the plane.
15. Javed Miandad
    • Signature: Ice in the veins, last-ball folklore, singles that feel like power shots.
    • Why here: Old-guard chaser who made finishing an attitude long before it became a role. Lower modern SR but high situational IQ.

A quick snapshot matrix for the all-time top bracket

Note: “Exceptional/High/Moderate” tiers reflect normalized scores in the Finisher Index rather than raw figures. They indicate comparative standing among high-volume finishers with role alignment.

Best Finishers by Format

Best finisher in ODI cricket

ODI finishing values survival and acceleration in unequal measure. You’re juggling the need to bat deep with the need to explode in a narrower death phase, with fielding rules and ball wear evolving the calculus.

ODI top ten finishers

1. MS Dhoni
   • The ODI template. Hits the seam of the chase perfectly; time-and-gear selection is unparalleled. Could go 15–20 balls low-risk and still leave the slog overs short-handed for the bowling side.
2. Michael Bevan
   • If Dhoni is death control plus late violence, Bevan is endless depth at the crease. He deflated required run rates over long passages and stole wins by starving the opposition of wickets.
3. AB de Villiers
   • When the task is acceleration in the last ten, there’s no better. Strike rate after the 40th over is summit-level; bowlers avoid him but the ball still leaves the ground.
4. Lance Klusener
   • A batter built for ODIs at the death. Few hit harder against length; pace or spin, his swing path created top-spin scuds through wide long-on.
5. Jos Buttler
   • Elevated from a boundary hitter to a full-chase manager. Shapes fields, picks gaps, and keeps the strike rate healthy without losing his head.
6. David Miller
   • Strength-based death hitter who learned to wait. His best ODI finishes are about clarity: refuse bad matchups, bully the one weak over.
7. Virat Kohli
   • More a chaser than a death hitter, but in ODIs that still defines finishing. Reads the ask and calculates risk nearly perfectly. Could sit even higher by aggregate wins.
8. Glenn Maxwell
   • ODI volatility at No. 6 used to be a problem; now it’s a ceiling that breaks oppositions. Pace-off and 7–2 leg-side fields are no longer safe.
9. Ben Stokes
   • Dragged his teams out of holes in ODIs like few others. Takes the last 15 overs personally. Finishes are less explosive than Maxwell or Buttler but high on WPA.
10. Ravindra Jadeja
    • Classical lower-middle order ODI value: high not-outs in wins, accompanied by bursts of boundary-hitting down the ground and between point and extra.

Best finisher in T20I

T20I finishing leans toward pure destruction, but the best closers still bring game awareness: strike rotation against a favorable matchup, calculated assault against the weak link, leaving a specialist to handle a tricky angle.

T20I top ten finishers

1. Andre Russell
   • The most consistently terrifying endgame hitter in international T20 context. Even when he fails, the pressure deforms the bowling plan.
2. Jos Buttler
   • When he bats through or comes back at the death as a closer, the finishing looks almost elegant. Range makes fielding plans feel pointless.
3. Glenn Maxwell
   • Carrying the scoring rate while resisting tempo dips on slow surfaces is his superpower. Reverse hits turn length into a liability.
4. David Miller
   • Picks the seam of a chase beautifully at international level. Selectivity is elite: ignores the ego ball and punishes the percentage ball.
5. Hardik Pandya
   • Finds the straight boundary with alarming regularity. In T20Is, his matchups against pace are an edge teams plan entire death phases around.
6. Dinesh Karthik
   • Specialist of 10–15 ball finishes. Combines depth-of-crease tricks with short fine-leg manipulation to break yorker plans.
7. Kieron Pollard
   • Retired from some formats but the body of work in T20Is is still revered. A single Pollard over at the death can erase twenty overs of good bowling.
8. Heinrich Klaasen
   • Pace-off and spin finisher. If you feed him length with a packed off-side ring, he goes through it; if you push wide yorkers, he has the reach.
9. Nicholas Pooran
   • Left-handed launch codes: uncorks from a still base, punishes high pace, and clears deep midwicket as if it’s ten yards closer.
10. Ravindra Jadeja
    • Tactical finisher; doesn’t always seek the stand-and-deliver option but repeatedly gets his side home with resourceful shot selection.

Test fourth-innings clutch list

“Finisher” in Tests is less about death hitting and more about closing out nerve-gnawing chases in the fourth innings. A few names rise for their temperament and WPA in tense wins.

• Ben Stokes: Carried sides across lines in two or three of the format’s most unforgiving pursuits. Shot selection under chaos is almost unnatural.
• Kane Williamson: Calm and precise; few play late with such certainty when the final innings is a minefield.
• Virat Kohli: More associated with set-up than close, but his control and running turn tight chases into operational wins.
• Angelo Mathews: Takes body blows, still finds the late boundary. A genuine endgame presence.
• Kusal Perera: The day he outlasted a world-class attack with a tail for company sits as an all-time finish in whites.
• Babar Azam: Temperamentally sound in fourth-innings pursuits; builds an avenue to win rather than forcing it.
• Steve Waugh: Old-school grit; turned bad positions into marginal winning positions, then held them.

Best Finishers in T20 Leagues

Best finisher in IPL history

• MS Dhoni: The IPL finish is his brand. Oppositions schedule match-ups around his arrival, yet he still leaves them walking. Sequence management in last two overs is his art form.
• Kieron Pollard: Carried a franchise across tournaments with late-inning brutality. Under pressure, his simple rule—clear the front leg and hit a hard length—made good bowling irrelevant.
• AB de Villiers: Less volume at 6–7 than others, but his finishing clinics from 4–5 with overs left are some of the greatest. The line between anchor and finisher blurred when he was at the crease.
• Andre Russell: Raw T20 finishing power. The threat alone changes bowling rotations earlier in an innings.
• Dinesh Karthik: Specialist closer for multiple cycles; his 12-ball clinics live rent-free in bowling coaches’ nightmares.
• David Miller: Reboot under clarity of role created a new IPL finishing force: pick the over, end the game.
• Hardik Pandya: Straight-hitting algorithm. Can turn a 12-per-over ask into run-a-ball off one over.
• Ravindra Jadeja: Understated until the last eight balls; then the angles and wrists arrive.
• Rinku Singh: Rare cold-blooded clarity under last-over asks; built a highlight reel of stacked sixes against set fields.
• Rahul Tewatia: Finesse and muscle; ramps wide yorkers and punishes the inevitable miss in a sequence.

By franchise (historical impact)

• CSK: MS Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja
• MI: Kieron Pollard, Tim David
• RCB: AB de Villiers, Dinesh Karthik
• KKR: Andre Russell, Rinku Singh
• RR: Jos Buttler, Shimron Hetmyer
• SRH: Heinrich Klaasen, Rahul Tripathi
• DC: Rishabh Pant, Axar Patel
• PBKS: David Miller (legacy), Shahrukh Khan
• LSG: Nicholas Pooran, Marcus Stoinis
• GT: Rahul Tewatia, David Miller

Other T20 leagues

• BBL: Dan Christian, Tim David, Ashton Turner
• PSL: Asif Ali, Iftikhar Ahmed, Rilee Rossouw
• CPL: Kieron Pollard, Andre Russell, Nicholas Pooran
• SA20: Heinrich Klaasen, Aiden Markram, David Miller
• ILT20: Nicholas Pooran, Kieron Pollard, Rovman Powell
• The Hundred: Liam Livingstone, Jos Buttler (finishing stints), Moeen Ali

Current best finishers in cricket

“Current” here reflects form and role clarity across international and league play in the present competitive landscape.

• Heinrich Klaasen: Against both pace-off and spin, he might be the scariest closer right now.
• Nicholas Pooran: Strike rate plus game state management trending upward; league form remarkable.
• Rinku Singh: Small international sample, massive league proof; fearless in last overs.
• Hardik Pandya: Reliability with matchups; fitness permitting, remains a trusted closer.
• David Miller: Aging like a fine hitter; composure tuned for pursuit.
• Tim David: Minimal backlift, maximum exit velocity; thrives on width and length errors.
• Rahul Tewatia: Finishes chases from thin margins with feel for wide lines and crease depth.
• Ravindra Jadeja: Value spikes in tight, low-scoring surfaces where two twos equal one four.
• Jitesh Sharma: Rising profile; quick bat and willingness to hit first ball for four or six.
• Glenn Maxwell: Still the chaos artist who makes 20 balls feel like 40.

Country-wise Best Finishers

India

• MS Dhoni: The template.
• Hardik Pandya: Straight-line power and composure in late chases.
• Ravindra Jadeja: Craft and calm.
• Dinesh Karthik: Pure T20 closer.
• Rinku Singh: Modern cult finisher; unmatched clarity late.
• Rishabh Pant: A left-handed shock absorber who can also finish with audacity.

Australia

• Michael Bevan: ODI original.
• Michael Hussey: Mr. Cricket could close without fuss and with a high chase average.
• Glenn Maxwell: Unfair match-up for all types in end overs.
• Marcus Stoinis: Strength, especially vs. pace in T20.
• Matthew Wade: Proven T20I closer on big nights.
• Tim David: Singapore-born, Australia in T20Is; lethal league closer.

England

• Jos Buttler: The finisher-opener hybrid.
• Ben Stokes: Big moments, bigger heart.
• Eoin Morgan: ODI champion captain who redefined white-ball aggression and closed many innings.
• Liam Livingstone: Range power with heavy spin-hitting.
• Sam Curran: Left-handed utility finisher; sneaks boundaries from awkward lines.
• Harry Brook: Young profile trending up as a closer when not tasked earlier.

Pakistan

• Javed Miandad: The original ice-veins chaser.
• Inzamam-ul-Haq: Quietly one of the most decisive ODI chasers.
• Shahid Afridi: Boom-bust, but game-breaking at the death.
• Iftikhar Ahmed: Spin-hitting value late.
• Asif Ali: T20 role clarity—short, sharp finishes.

South Africa

• AB de Villiers: A class apart.
• David Miller: “Killer” finishing matured into consistency.
• Lance Klusener: Death overs thunder.
• Heinrich Klaasen: Present-day monster vs. spin and pace-off.
• Aiden Markram: Captain’s clarity in late overs; inventive with angles.

West Indies

• Kieron Pollard: Franchise finishing colossus.
• Andre Russell: The most feared T20 finisher across leagues.
• Dwayne Bravo: Savvy with late cameos and world-class death bowling; a dual-impact closer.
• Nicholas Pooran: Lefty with skyscraper ceiling.
• Carlos Brathwaite: Limited sample, unforgettable T20 world event climax.

New Zealand

• Kane Williamson: Calm closer in ODIs and Tests.
• Ross Taylor: ODI chase artisan with last-over nerves of steel.
• James Neesham: T20 finishing spikes; pace-hitting when it matters.
• Mitchell Santner: Quiet T20 finishes, especially on slower pitches.

Sri Lanka

• Aravinda de Silva: Big-night finishing brain in ODIs.
• Angelo Mathews: Power-free finishing with brains; plus the odd big blow.
• Thisara Perera: T20 power profile, high ceiling.
• Kusal Perera: From top order to endgame heroics when cast that way.

Bangladesh

• Mahmudullah: The clutch ODI/T20 closer for a generation.
• Mushfiqur Rahim: Chase tactician; busy hands and gaps late.
• Shakib Al Hasan: All-round control; not always a closer, but a win-bringer.

Afghanistan

• Mohammad Nabi: T20 finisher with off-spin utility; slow-surface master.
• Najibullah Zadran: Left-handed power; boundary bursts late.
• Rashid Khan: Surprise cameos that flip chases, especially with ramps and slices.

Best Finishers in Women’s Cricket

Women’s white-ball cricket has evolved tactically fast; finishers are now specialist roles. Power has grown; so has the mastery of pace-off and spin-heavy endgames. The names below reflect international and league performance with WPL/WBBL impact considered.

• Nat Sciver-Brunt: The most complete finisher in women’s cricket. Pace or spin, she picks her arcs early and rarely loses her shape. In chases, she carries the ask like a backpack and never lets the rate balloon.
• Harmanpreet Kaur: Ice in close finishes. When a game drifts, she finds a boundary line no one saw; when bowling is clever, she out-thinks it with placement and wrists.
• Ashleigh Gardner: The spin-hitting blueprint; gets under length, lifts over straight, and finds the extra cover pocket at will. Finishes on slow decks better than most.
• Deandra Dottin: Raw power with a quick bat path; changes endings of T20s in three balls.
• Richa Ghosh: Rising finisher. Hits square of the wicket with authority, handles powerplay leftovers and death overs smartly, and thrives under scoreboard pressure.
• Marizanne Kapp: Engineering mind at the crease; refuses bad options, punishes fractionally off lengths. The combination of seam bowling and finishing gives team balance.
• Beth Mooney: Often an opener, yet she finishes innings with ruthless clarity in T20s—keeps par within reach, then ends it late with precision.
• Amelia Kerr: All-round game includes finishing through deft placement and controlled aggression; excels at finding twos, the mark of a nuanced closer.
• Chloe Tryon: Left-handed thump; a bowler’s nightmare if the plan misses by inches.
• Hayley Matthews: Primarily top order, but her T20 finishing skills are elite when the script demands a closer.

How great finishers actually think

• They read bowlers, not balls: Short boundary, wind, field depth, and bowler tendencies sit in a mental dashboard. The shot is chosen before the ball leaves the hand.
• They target an over: It’s better to take 18 off one over than spread 18 across three. Even in chases, choosing the weak link breaks the defense.
• They kill dot balls: A single against the right ball is a finisher’s flex. Dots at the death are oxygen for the fielding side; a great finisher suffocates them.

Tactical and Skillset Guide: How to Become a Finisher

Mental model

• Situation mapping: Track required rate, resources, the next two overs, and the spare over to leave for a favorable matchup.
• Ego control: Let bad balls go early, save risk for the targeted over.
• Calm routines: Repeatable between-ball resets—look down, deep breath, glance at the field—build composure for the swing moment.

Technical skills

• Yorker access: Use of the crease, setting a deeper guard, and side-on alignment to get under the ball. Practice base stability first; then add helicopter wrists to move the ball from leg to straight.
• Pace-off hitting: Wait and hit. Drill against slower-ball variations with a “late contact” cue; target straight and extra-cover pockets. Keep head still.
• Range against short boundary: Two or three safe areas matter more than five risky ones. Pick your area early.
• Off-pace scoops: Learn the paddle and ramp off back-of-the-hand slower balls; practice with cones behind square to visualize angles.
• Strike rotation: Hide the firm push into a two. Off-pace bowling rewards soft hands and smart running lines.

Training constraints

• Scenario nets: Enter with 45 needed off 24, 2 wickets in hand. Rotate bowlers every ball. Repeat.
• Two-ball finishes: Practice 10 repetitions of 8 off 2 with different fields; log outcomes and improve pattern recognition.
• Dot-ball elimination: Play a death overs net where a dot equals minus two; reward twos and set a boundary bonus. Score it over weeks.

Matchup reading at the death

• Versus high pace: Head still, base wider, pick straight. If the angle is across, open the front hip just enough to access the off-side gap without slicing.
• Versus wide yorkers: Walk across early; commit to either reach-and-slice or get deep and drag. Don’t split the difference.
• Versus left-arm angle: Pre-meditate the passing gap: fine leg if set square, extra cover if they go too full and straight.
• Versus wrist spin with pace-off fields: Reverse-sweep earlier than you think; force the bowler to change length; then cash in on the miss.

Best Finishers in World Tournaments (contextual)

• MS Dhoni: Knockout temperament where dot-ball starvation plus one blow broke the game.
• Ben Stokes: Carried an ODI title chase and a T20 crown with stubborn clarity.
• AB de Villiers: Tore apart death overs in global tournaments, even when team results wobbled.
• Kieron Pollard: League finals and global playoffs peppered with singularly destructive overs.
• Glenn Maxwell: Turned hopeless scripts into headlines through pain and improvisation.
• Harmanpreet Kaur: Captain’s authority in tight chases, finishing with guile and steel.
• Nat Sciver-Brunt: A tournament’s biggest pressure feels small in her hands.

Comparisons and debates settled with context

Dhoni vs AB de Villiers: who is the greatest finisher

If the goal is the pure act of ending a game with violence and range, ABD may look like the choice on a highlight reel. If the goal is to maximize win probability across formats and conditions, Dhoni’s not-out profile, chase average, and ability to decide exactly when to change gears lift him in composite. Call ABD the most versatile and aesthetically unstoppable death hitter; call Dhoni the greatest finisher.

Dhoni vs Bevan as ODI finishers

Bevan maximized survival and squeeze in a lower-scoring age; Dhoni added late-power inflation to the same survival. Bevan’s ODI finishing is poetry of pressure control. Dhoni’s ODI finishing is poetry plus a hammer. Dhoni shades it because his late-phase destruction is stronger for equal or better chase control.

Russell vs Pollard as T20 finishers

Russell has the highest ceiling: the single most frightening last-overs hitter. Pollard has the broader body of work and a more stable finishing percentage. You pick the match-up: if the last three overs will be raw pace, Russell; if there’s a mixed bag with captaincy traps, Pollard.

Best Finishers in IPL: snapshot table

Women’s cricket finishers: snapshot table

Advanced metrics glossary

• Death overs SR: Exact strike rate from overs 41–50 (ODIs) and 16–20 (T20s).
• Finishing percentage: Defined above; a hybrid of presence at win and decisive cameo in final third.
• WPA/Clutch: Modeled win probability added during the time at the crease, especially in the final third of innings.

FAQs

Who is the No. 1 finisher in cricket?

MS Dhoni. Across ODIs, T20Is, and leagues, his combination of chase average, not-outs in wins, low dot percentage at the death, and knockout composure produces the highest composite Finisher Index.

Why is MS Dhoni called the best finisher?

He rewired the chase. Dhoni valued wickets in hand, timed the surge, and finished games with an uncanny feel for the one over to target. His ODI chase numbers and last-over temperament make him the standard.

Who is the best finisher in ODI cricket?

MS Dhoni, with Michael Bevan the master of the earlier era and AB de Villiers the purest death-overs enforcer. Dhoni edges it by combining survival and late hitting in the same innings repeatedly.

Who is the best finisher in T20I?

Andre Russell as a pure death-overs blaster, with Jos Buttler and David Miller as the complete T20I finishing packages when both survival and strike are considered.

Who is the best finisher in IPL?

MS Dhoni for total body of work. Kieron Pollard, AB de Villiers, and Andre Russell follow as the most feared IPL endgame hitters.

Who is the best current finisher in cricket?

Heinrich Klaasen, Nicholas Pooran, and Rinku Singh top the present form charts across formats and leagues, with Hardik Pandya, David Miller, and Tim David right behind.

Is AB de Villiers better than Dhoni as a finisher?

ABD is the ultimate death-overs hitter for range and speed; Dhoni is the greatest finisher overall for finishing percentage and chase control. If you prize pure strike rate under death conditions, pick ABD. If you prize getting home most often in the hardest games, pick Dhoni.

Who has the most runs at the death in T20 leagues?

Andre Russell, Kieron Pollard, and AB de Villiers are among the top in cumulative runs at the death across major T20 leagues, with Russell often topping strike rate charts for that phase.

Which player has the most not-outs in successful ODI chases?

MS Dhoni leads among high-volume batters by a comfortable margin, a reflection of how often he was present when the handshake came.

Sources and Data Notes

• ODI and T20I splits via ESPNcricinfo’s Statsguru filters by batting position, phase (overs 41–50 and 16–20), and result (successful chases).
• League-phase splits drawn from IPL and other league databases, filtered for balls faced at the death and batting order.
• WPA/Clutch approximated from ball-by-ball archives and publicly available win probability models; for players without model coverage, a proxy based on game state deltas was used.
• Knockouts and playoffs flagged manually; small-sample caution applied.
• Composite Finisher Index uses normalized (z-scored) metrics per format, aggregated with the weights listed earlier.

Closing thoughts

Finishing is not a trick shot; it’s a philosophy shaped by risk, time, and information. It asks for game awareness as much as muscle. That’s why the greatest finishers in cricket history make it look simple. Dhoni slows the room down. AB de Villiers expands the field until it breaks. Bevan convinces the bowler there’s one more dot coming—then takes two. Klusener dares you to miss by an inch. Pollard and Russell make a miscue travel like a rocket.

If you coach, recruit, or just love this role, track not just who hits the longest six. Track who deletes dot balls, who times the target over, who refuses ego shots until the game invites them. Track who leaves the crease when the game is done, not when the highlights are finished. That’s the difference between a hitter and the best finisher in cricket.