Rajasthan Royals leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal has been in tremendously good form in the ongoing IPL 2022 and currently is the Purple Cap holder. He continued his largely majestic show with the ball- on Saturday afternoon picking up three wickets against Punjab Kings to take his season tally to 22 wickets.
With this, Chahal became only the second bowler in the history of the IPL to take more than 20 wickets in a single season. Legendary Mumbai Indians pacer Lasith Malinga is the first bowler to take over 20 dismissals in a single season, he did it in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2015.
Yuzvendra Chahal now has nipped out 20 wickets in four different seasons – 2015, 2016, 2020, and 2022. The leggie is RCB’s all-time IPL leading wicket-taker with 139 wickets for his previous franchise, which is so much more commendable because he played most of his games at the flat-pitched, small-sized M. Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Most times picking 20+ wickets in an IPL season
4 : Yuzi Chahal*
4 : Lasith Malinga
3 : Bhuvneshwar Kumar
3 : Jasprit Bumrah
3 : Sunil NarinePlayed most of the games in Chinnaswamy and still topping the list
#YuziChahal | #IPL2022 | #PBKSvRR
— Cricbaba (@thecricbaba) May 7, 2022
Chahal is also expected to soon surpass Malinga in total IPL wickets. The Sri Lankan is second on the list with 170 scalps while Chahal is not too far behind with 161 IPL wickets. CSK’s Dwayne Bravo is the all-time leading IPL wicket-taker with 181 dismissals.
Speaking about his heroics against Punjab that helped RR restrict Punjab to 189, which they chased down in the last over, Chahal plucked out three of Punjab Kings’ top four at the Wankhede to peg back the opposition.
In his first three overs, conceding only 17 runs on a flat surface, Chahal had dismissed Jonny Bairstow, Bhanuka Rajapaksa and PBKS skipper Mayank Agarwal, before being called upon to bowl one over in the death, the 18th, where Jitesh Sharma and Liam Livingstone took 11 runs off the leggie.
Chahal is currently the leading wicket-taker of the IPL 2022, with 22 scalps to his name in 11 outings. His bowling average of 14.45 and economy of 7.25 are amongst the best in the tournament.
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