It is often said that T20 cricket is suited for the young players and the older ones can’t really fulfill the demands of this particular format of the game.
But, we have seen it time and time again in the IPL how big an impact the older players have made for their respective teams and some of them have even won the orange cap in the IPL in their late 30s.
Here are the 4 oldest players to win the orange cap in the IPL –
#1 Michael Hussey:
Michael Hussey won an orange cap in IPL 2013 at 37 years of age. The left-hander scored a total of 733 runs in the tournament. However, despite the mammoth effort of the veteran, CSK wasn’t able to win the tournament that year as they were beaten by the Mumbai Indians in the final.
CSK was not chasing a huge score in the final and most of the people, at the half-time break, backed CSK to win the final and Hussey to lead the charge. However, Mumbai dismissed Hussey early and CSK never recovered from that blow.
#2 Matthew Hayden:
Matthew Hayden won the orange cap in IPL 2009 and he was also 37 years of age at that time. Hayden, however, scored just 572 runs to win the orange cap which was a much lower number as compared to Hussey’s tally of 733 runs in IPL 2013.
CSK couldn’t win the IPL in 2009 either. In fact, they didn’t even reach the final that year and were eliminated in the semi-final round itself.
#3 Sachin Tendulkar:
Sachin Tendulkar won the orange cap in IPL 2010, and interestingly, he was also 37 years of age when he won the orange cap.
Another interesting thing was that even Sachin’s team didn’t win the trophy when he won the orange cap. Mumbai Indians were up against the Chennai Super Kings in the final of IPL 2010 and they got beaten by the men in yellow.
Sachin finished as the highest scorer of the tournament with a tally of 618 runs.
#4 Chris Gayle:
Chris Gayle was another player in his 30s to win the orange cap in IPL. He won the orange cap for two consecutive IPL seasons (IPL 2011 and IPL 2012) by scoring 608 and 733 runs in the two editions of the tournament respectively.
Gayle, who was almost unstoppable in those two editions, was 32 years of age when he won his second orange cap in the IPL in 2012.
