Bhuvneshwar stretches Purple Cap lead; Kohli, Rahul move up on Orange Cap table
It was a day with two matches at IPL 2026, and that meant some of the star performers of the season made big moves up the Orange and Purple Cap tables
ESPNcricinfo staff
Published: May 18, 2026, 2:37 AM (1 hr ago)
Some of the best performing batters of IPL 2026 did the heavy lifting for their teams on Sunday, when Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) beat Punjab Kings (PBKS) and Delhi Capitals (DC) got the better of Rajasthan Royals (RR). While the top man on the Purple Cap table stretched his lead.
When RCB beat PBKS, Virat Kohli scored 58 in 37 balls and Cooper Connolly scored 37 in 22 balls. Neither of them was the best batter on show, but made big contributions nevertheless.
As a result, Kohli moved to 542 runs for the season and close to the top two of B Sai Sudharsan (554 runs) and Shubman Gill (552 runs), the Gujarat Titans (GT) openers. And Connolly got to 473 runs and the eighth spot.
Later in the double-header day as DC beat RR, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi hit 46 in 21 balls, and KL Rahul scored 56 in 42 balls. With those runs, Rahul relegated Heinrich Klaasen of Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) to fifth spot and slotted in behind Kohli at No. 4 with 533 runs. Sooryavanshi, meanwhile, is at No. 6 with 486 runs.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar has been unstoppable this season, and continued to be among the wickets against PBKS, sending back the openers Priyansh Arya and Prabhsimran Singh in his first and third overs respectively on his way to returns of 2 for 38. A trifle expensive on the day, going at 9.50 when his season economy rate has been 7.70.
The wickets took his tally for the season up to 24, three clear of second-placed Kagiso Rabada of GT and five clear of Anshul Kamboj of Chennai Super Kings (CSK).
In the evening, Jofra Archer returned 2 for 35, bouncing back after a sequence of three games where he only picked up two wickets and went for plenty. Archer got to fourth place on the table with 17 wickets, one ahead of a quartet of bowlers with 16 wickets.
