Four-for gives Bhuvneshwar big lead at the top of IPL 2026 Purple Cap table
Virat Kohli’s second duck in a row and moderate outings for Sanju Samson and Ryan Rickelton meant the Orange Cap table at IPL 2026 was largely unchanged
ESPNcricinfo staff
Published: May 10, 2026, 6:29 PM (7 hrs ago)
A double-header day always changes things drastically on the Orange and Purple Cap tables, and so it was at IPL 2026 on Sunday, though much of the changing took place on the wicket-takers’ leaderboard and not the one for run-getters. Here’s a look.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Purple Cap winner back-to-back in 2016 and 2017, he has clearly not lost any of his expertise despite being 36 and almost invisible for the best part of the year. And he is getting better and better, it would seem. The 4 for 23 against Mumbai Indians (MI), in what ended up in a dramatic win for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), was his sixth three-for this season – though the first four-for – and took his tally up to 21.
He needed something special to stay at the head of the race after Kagiso Rabada got to 18 wickets on Saturday and, earlier on Sunday in the day game, Anshul Kamboj took two wickets for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) to get to 19 for the season and, temporarily, the top spot.
So it’s Bhuvneshwar in the lead, followed by Kamboj, followed by Rabada, and then two bowlers with 16 wickets – LSG’s Prince Yadav, who went wicketless on Sunday, and Eshan Malinga of Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) – and then two bowlers on 15 each: Rashid Khan of Gujarat Titans (GT) and Jofra Archer of Rajasthan Royals (RR).
After a two-ball duck against LSG in his previous outing, it was a first-ball duck for Virat Kohli against MI, and that kept him stuck in tenth place, still on 379 runs, exactly what he had on April 30.
That also meant no change in the top ten on the table.
SRH’s Heinrich Klaasen (494 runs) and Abhishek Sharma (475 runs) are still one and two, KL Rahul of Delhi Capitals (DC, 468 runs) is still No. 3, GT captain Shubman Gill, who scored 84 on Saturday against RR, is at No. 4 with 462 runs, and RR’s Vaibhav Sooryavanshi completes the top five, with 440 runs.
Between them and Kohli are GT’s B Sai Sudharsan, CSK hero Sanju Samson, who scored 28 on Sunday against LSG, SRH’s No. 3 Ishan Kishan, and MI opener Ryan Rickelton, who could have moved up but faltered against RCB, scoring just 2.
