RCB's IPL title, 5 wickets in an over and more: 10 firsts that defined cricket in 2025

Here is a look at the cricketing events that happened for the first time in 2025.

Cricket in 2025 didn’t merely produce champions; it produced new categories of history. The year’s defining moments weren’t all about volumes of runs or the inevitability of greatness; they were about things that, until this year, simply had not happened in the sport.

Harmanpreet Kaur with the World Cup and Temba Bavuma after winning the WTC.(X images)

Here are the 10 cricket events that happened for the first time in the history of the game in 2025.

10. The first eight-wicket haul in T20Is

Sonam Yeshey from Bhutan delivered the first-ever 8-wicket haul in T20I cricket (male or female). He picked up 8/7 in four overs against Myanmar, who were bundled out for just 45. It is the kind of spell that changes what people believe is even possible in a 20-over game.

9. A bowler takes five wickets in a single over

Indonesia’s Gede Priandana became the first bowler to take five-wickets in an over in an international T20. It wasn’t technicality either; it came with a hat-trick inside the over, and it rewired what a collapse can look like in the shortest format.

8. Three super overs in a T20 match

Nepal vs Netherlands in Glasgow didn’t just go to a Super Over. It went to three. That is the first time any men’s professional match reached a third Super Over, after the game finished tied and the first two Super Overs also could not separate them. The Dutch finally win it in the third.

7. Joe Root becomes the first to 6,000 runs in the WTC

Joe Root became the first batter to score 6,000 runs in WTC. (AFP)

Joe Root has lived inside the top order for long enough that milestones are almost routine, except this one wasn’t. In August, Root became the first-ever batter to reach 6,000 runs in the ICC World Test Championship.

6. 5 wickets in 15 balls

Mitchell Starc reset the scale for the fastest five-for in Test cricket. Against the West Indies in Jamaica, he took the fastest five-wicket haul in men’s Test cricket history: 5 wickets in 15 balls. It was a record that shoved the previous one aside.

5. Seven ducks in a Test innings

In the same Test match where Starc picked up five wickets in just 15 deliveries, the West Indies scorecard contained seven ducks. This was the first time in the history of the game that this many ducks were scored in a single Test innings.

4. RCB finally win the IPL

RCB won their first ever IPL title in 2025. (ANI)

RCB didn’t just win their maiden title: they completed one of the league’s longest-running unfinished stories. In the IPL 2025 final, RCB beat the Punjab Kings by six runs to claim the franchise’s first-ever IPL title, at last tuning ‘nearly’ into ‘done’.

3. South Africa win their first-ever WTC

At Lord’s, South Africa beat Australia by five wickets to win the WTC title for the first time, powered by Aiden Markram’s 136 in a chase of 282. The match mattered because it changed a line in the history books: South Africa, WTC champions.

2. India become the first side to win three Champions Trophy titles

India’s Champions Trophy legacy moved from among the best to a clear historical first. With the 2025 win over New Zealand in Dubai, India became the tournament’s first three-time champions (2002 -shared, 2013, 20125), the only team to reach that number.

1. India women win their first-ever ODI World Cup

The biggest first of the year came for India at their home. On 2nd November 2025 at the DY Patil Stadium, Navi Mumbai, India defeated South Africa by 52 runs to win their maiden Women’s ODI World Cup. The final had everything: a big Indian total (298/7), a serious South African chase led by a captain’s century, and a decisive all-round impact - notably Shafali Verma’s 87 and Deepti Sharma’s 58 plus 5/39, in a tournament India ultimately made their own.