India, Feb. 5 -- Two things can be true in T20s: boundaries feel like the headline act. and yet tournaments are often won in the quiet minutes between them.

So we pulled a simple, telling split from the last three men's T20 World Cups: how much of the champion's scoring came from fours and sixes versus everything else.

Let us start with the cleanest possible scoreboard.

Australia were boundary-led overall - but still banked 420 runs that didn't come in 4s or 6s. That is basically two full competitive T20 total built out of strike rotation.

England are the perfect counterpunch to the only boundaries that win you a T20 World Cup claim. They won a World Cup while scoring more runs in non-boundaries than boundaries across the tournament -...