IPL 2026 Orange Cap & Purple Cap Races: Updated Standings & Picks

With 54 matches played and the playoffs looming, both individual award races have been turned on their head. Heinrich Klaasen has overtaken Abhishek Sharma at the top of the Orange Cap standings, Sooryavanshi continues to do things nobody his age should be able to do, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar has pulled off the unexpected, seizing the Purple Cap lead at 36. Here is what the data is actually telling us.

Orange Cap: Two Races in One

The headline shift since the midway point is Klaasen moving to the top of the table. His 494 runs from 11 innings at a 157 strike rate tells a story of relentless accumulation from a middle-order batter who has now faced enough deliveries to justify his position at the summit. The question is whether the man directly behind him can close a 19-run gap in the matches that remain.

The Orange Cap race still looks like two separate contests happening at once. The first is a volume race between Klaasen, Sharma, Rahul and Gill, where the question is who holds their nerve across the business end of the tournament. The second is a rate race, and that’s where a 15-year-old is doing something that has no real precedent.

The Klaasen Consistency Nobody Saw Coming

At the midway point, Klaasen’s strike rate looked like his ceiling rather than his floor. He was accumulating without exploding. What’s happened since is that he’s kept going at the same rate while others have had quieter spells. His 494 runs at 54.89 average is the best average in the top five by a distance, which means he’s not just scoring, he’s surviving. A batter at four or five who averages nearly 55 in T20 cricket is a different kind of dangerous.

His strike rate of 157 remains the lowest in the top five, but at this stage of the season that distinction matters less. The cap race is won by volume, and he has more of it than anyone else right now.

Sharma’s Strike Rate Problem

Abhishek Sharma sits second with 475 runs at a strike rate of 210. On pure rate, he’s second only to Sooryavanshi in this top five. But his average of 47.50 compared to Klaasen’s 54.89 points to slightly more variance in his output, and the 19-run deficit is tighter than it looks given both have played 11 innings.

His 135* against DC earlier in the season remains the most spectacular single innings on the leaderboard, and his career IPL strike rate around 167 makes his 210 this season look like a sustained elevation rather than an anomaly. The issue is that Klaasen is scoring more runs in fewer high-impact phases. One big Sharma knock closes this gap in a single evening.

Sooryavanshi is Playing a Different Game

The number that should stop anyone in their tracks is this: Sooryavanshi has 440 runs from 11 innings at a strike rate of 236. He’s hit 40 sixes this season, more than anyone else in the top five, while also contributing 38 fours. That’s not a powerplay specialist hiding behind good conditions; that’s a batter who destroys the ball at every phase of the innings.

He’s fifth on the table despite that strike rate because his average of 40 is lower than the batters above him, reflecting some shorter innings where he’s been dismissed in the powerplay going hard. But with RR still in the hunt for a playoff spot, he’ll get more games, and at his current scoring rate he needs fewer innings than anyone else to close this out. What’s more, he’s doing all this at 15-years-old, and is reinventing batting before our very eyes.

Rahul and Gill: The Experience Hedge

KL Rahul on 468 is the new name in the conversation, having put himself within touching distance of the top two with a 152 that now stands as the tournament’s highest individual score. His 180 strike rate is a level above where most would have expected him to operate this season. Gill on 462 from one fewer innings than his nearest rivals is another one to watch, and with GT likely to go deep into the tournament, he’ll face more deliveries than almost anyone in the top five.

Both are well-positioned to inherit the cap if Klaasen or Sharma hit a flat patch in the playoff push.

Purple Cap: Bhuvneshwar the Shock Leader

Nobody predicted Bhuvneshwar Kumar would be leading the Purple Cap race at this stage of the season. He’s 36, into his third decade of professional cricket, and is now the outright wicket leader with 21 scalps from 11 matches. A four-wicket haul against MI in the RCB vs MI clash pushed him clear. The rate he’s operating at, just under two wickets per match, is exactly the pace that wins this award at the end of a full season.

Kamboj had this lead earlier in the tournament and has slipped back, which is precisely what regression to the mean looks like in real time. He still has 19 wickets and is very much in the race, but the extraordinary pace of his opening six matches was always unlikely to hold.

The Chasing Pack Isn’t Far Behind

Rabada sits third with 18 wickets, three behind the leader. Everything said earlier in the season about him being the most dangerous challenger still holds. He takes wickets in the powerplay, he clusters them, and he has form at the back end of tournaments. GT are serious playoff contenders, which means he’ll have more high-pressure games to add to his tally.

Prince Yadav and Eshan Malinga are both on 16 with five wickets separating them from the lead. LSG have been eliminated, which ends Yadav’s season and effectively removes him from the race. Malinga remains active with SRH and will get playoff cricket if SRH hold their position, giving him a realistic route back into contention.

The Bhuvneshwar Story

Bhuvneshwar won this award in back-to-back seasons in 2016 and 2017. He’s now the outright leader for a third. The narrative writes itself, but the cricket underneath it is more interesting than the narrative. He’s doing it on controlled seam and swing in a high-scoring season where pace bowlers are getting punished across the board. His economy and line discipline at this stage of his career, against batters averaging 150-plus strike rates, is a different kind of skill from anything most of the tournament can offer.

RCB are top of the table, and look like a contender to go deep into the playoff rounds. Bhuvneshwar will keep getting chances to add to his tally, and if he takes them, a third Purple Cap is a very real outcome.

Who I’m Backing

Orange Cap

Klaasen deserves to be favourite at this point. He has the most runs, the best average, and he’s batting for a side with enough games left to pad his total further. But I’m not sure he holds on. Abhishek is 19 runs behind and scores at a rate that can erase that in the first over of an innings. KL Rahul’s 152 earlier this season proved he can produce the kind of knockout blow that reshapes this table overnight.

If I’m picking one player to win this from here, it’s Abhishek Sharma. He has the strike rate, he’s operating above his career norms in a sustained way rather than a one-off spike, and SRH’s likelihood of going deep into the playoffs means more opportunities to cash in. Sooryavanshi remains the wildcard, but averaging 40 in a cap race where the winner likely needs 600-plus runs puts a ceiling on where his rate alone can take him.

Purple Cap

Bhuvneshwar is the best pick. Three wickets clear, RCB are into the playoffs, and he’s been doing this for long enough to know how to stay in front at the back end of a tournament. The worry with Rabada is that GT’s campaign ends before he can close the gap, though if they go all the way he’s more than capable of overtaking anyone in the field. Back Bhuvneshwar to hold what he has and add to it. A third Purple Cap at 36 would be one of the stories of IPL 2026.