Pretorius broke two big marks with 188 not out, taking the highest T20 score and the South African best in a single night. It came off 79 balls with 15 fours and 13 sixes, a strike rate of 237.97, as Titans reached 267/3 and beat Knights by 124 runs at Mangaung Oval in Bloemfontein on 2 October. Several smaller marks sat inside the same innings, and their status is still unconfirmed. Here is how the rest of the ledger reads, and what came before it.
A 79-Ball Innings Built on Boundaries
Pretorius finished unbeaten on 188 from 79 balls, hitting 15 fours and 13 sixes. That adds up to 138 runs from 28 boundaries, which means most of his innings was scored without needing to run at all. The strike rate of 237.97 shows how rarely he let an over pass quietly. This was sustained attack from the opening stand onward, not a slow build with a late flourish, and a rate like that leaves very little room for the bowling side to recover.
Titans finished on 267/3, and Knights folded for 143 in 17.2 overs, a 124-run margin that matched the gulf between the two innings. Pretorius scored 188 of the 267, a share of just over 70 percent. Knights were never in the chase, and the result became a footnote to the innings, while Titans also lost only three wickets, which says the platform was never in danger. Most of what happened at Mangaung Oval that day will be remembered through one scorecard line.
Gayle and Brevis Lose Their Marks
The previous highest T20 score was 175 not out, made by Gayle for RCB against Pune Warriors in IPL 2013. That innings had stood as the benchmark since 2013, which makes the margin of the change more striking. It is the kind of mark most people assumed would never move. Pretorius passed it by 13 runs, and in doing so he took the highest T20 score away from Gayle.
The South African mark belonged to Brevis, who hit 162 for Titans against Knights on 31 October 2022, with 13 sixes. Pretorius matched that six-count against the same opponents for the same franchise and beat the score by 26 runs. The 162 had looked out of reach until this innings. Two Titans batters have now owned the national record against Knights inside four years, and for the franchise it simply changed hands within the family.
CSA T20 Challenge 2026 Pretorius 188 Record
The team total did not fall. Titans 267/3 is the second-highest in tournament history, behind the 271/3 they made against Knights in 2022. That means the same two teams own the top two totals in the competition, and the 271/3 stayed out of reach by just four runs. The 79 balls he faced also tied Finch and Stoinis on that mark.
Several other marks have no confirmed status. Pretorius and Qeshile put on 100 in just over seven overs for the opening stand, 13 sixes were hit, and the 138 boundary runs sit unresolved as well. All three figures are strong enough to matter, and none has a verdict yet; another count puts the opening partnership at 112, which is part of why its status is open. Until the official scorecard settles them, they remain strong claims rather than certainties.
Two Earlier Hundreds Set the Stage
This was not a bolt from nowhere. Pretorius scored 102 off 52 balls for San Francisco Unicorns against MI New York on 8 July, which was his maiden T20 hundred. The strike rate in that innings sat close to 196, an early sign of how quickly he scores. The maiden hundred came in a different league, but the scoring speed carried over, and it was the first piece of evidence that a very big innings was coming.
He followed with 101 off 53 against Namibia on 4 September, his maiden T20I century, and scored 94 in the same tri-series. Seen against that run, the CSA T20 Challenge 2026 Pretorius 188 record looks like a ceiling reached through months of rising form. Three hundreds in under three months, each at better than a run a ball, make this look like a trend rather than a fluke.