The Biggest Myth Surrounding The Orange Cap: The IPL 2022 extravaganza is set to take fire on Saturday with defending champions Chennai Super Kings taking on runner-ups Kolkata Knight Riders at the Wankhede Stadium. The 15th edition of the league, which sees the addition of two teams making it a 10-team tournament, will be played in four venues across Mumbai and Pune.
Although two new teams have been included, the number of league games remains the same – 14. This will give players a fair chance to break the previous record of Orange and Purple Cap holders.
Currently, Virat Kohli has the record of most runs in a single IPL season – the 973 runs he amassed when he was in a beast mode in 2016. 32 wickets each by Dwayne Bravo in 2013 for CSK and Harshal Patel for RCB last year is the highest wicket tally by a bowler in a single IPL season.
However, an interesting stat shows that winning the Orange Cap for a batsman – finishing as the leading run-scorer in the tournament – doesn’t guarantee a title.
It has happened that the batsman winning the Orange Cap has ended up winning the title as well.
In fact, only twice it has happened that the batsman winning the Orange Cap has ended up winning the title as well: Robin Uthappa in 2014, when the opener scored 660 runs helping KKR win the title; Ruturaj Gaikwad in 2021, when the CSK opener had his breakthrough season amassing 635 runs.
To think, it needs a combined team effort to win the title: Mumbai Indians have won 5 IPL titles so far, but in none of it they had a player winning either the Orange or Purple Cap. The only Mumbai Indians batsman to have won the Orange Cap in the IPL is Sachin Tendulkar in 2010 when a 37-year-old Tendulkar recorded 618 runs and took the team to the final.
Even in Virat Kohli’s god-like form in 2016 – 973 runs, 4 centuries, a fifty in the final too – RCB failed to grasp the coveted IPL trophy, going down to SRH in the final.
Former Sunrisers Hyderabad captain and opener David Warner, an all-time IPL great, has won the Orange Cap most number of times – 3 in 2015, 2017 and 2019. Chris Gayle has won it twice – in 2011 and 2012 with RCB failing to win the final in 2011.
Although Punjab Kings have failed to reach the playoffs in each of the last four seasons, opener and their former skipper KL Rahul has ransacked runs at east; Rahul won the Orange Cap in 2020.
