Klaasen back at No. 1 in IPL 2026 Orange Cap race; Abhishek and Kishan rise too
Anshul Kamboj, meanwhile, has become the third bowler this season to touch, or cross, 20 wickets
ESPNcricinfo staff
Published: May 19, 2026, 3:13 AM (3 hrs ago)
The race to the IPL 2026 playoffs are heating up and the onus is on the high-performing players through the season – the ones that are the leaders on the Orange and Purple Cap tables – to do the heavy lifting for their teams. Some of them did exactly that on Monday as Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) got the better of Chennai Super Kings (CSK).
SRH star Heinrich Klaasen had a six-day gap between matches, and the Orange Cap shifted heads in his absence. He was back on Monday, scoring 47 in 26 balls, and that took him right back to the top of the table with 555 runs. Just one run ahead of B Sai Sudharsan and three runs ahead of Shubman Gill, the Gujarat Titans (GT) openers still very much in the race.
Behind them in the top five are Virat Kohli of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) with 542 runs and KL Rahul of Delhi Capitals (DC) with 533, with Klaasen’s colleague Abhishek Sharma, after scoring 26 against CSK, at No. 6 with 507 runs.
Ishan Kishan, meanwhile, rose to No. 7 on that table after a Player-of-the-Match performance against CSK, where he scored 70 in 47 balls to take his tally for the season up to 490. And Sanju Samson, courtesy his 27 against SRH, jumped past Cooper Connolly of Punjab Kings (PBKS) and Mitchell Marsh of Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) to get to No. 9 with 477 runs.
Anshul Kamboj was expensive against SRH, conceding 46 runs from his four overs, but got a wicket, which made him the third bowler to touch (or cross) 20 wickets for the season. He is now on 20, with only RCB’s Bhuvneshwar Kumar (24 wickets) and GT’s Kagiso Rabada (21 wickets) ahead of him.
SRH’s Eshan Malinga, meanwhile, broke out of a group of bowlers with 16 wickets with the wicket of Dewald Brevis to get to 17 for the season. That’s the same as Jofra Archer of Rajasthan Royals (RR), and that’s the top five for the moment.
