Hazlewood threatens Noor in IPL 2025 Purple Cap race with three-for in RCB vs PBKS
Shreyas Iyer and Virat Kohli failed with the bat on Friday, spoiling their chances of moving up the Orange Cap table
ESPNcricinfo staff
19-Apr-2025
While the top of the Orange Cap leaderboard still hasn't changed, and might not looking at the fixtures in Saturday's double-header, there's a new No. 2 - or even joint-leader - on the Purple Cap list. Here's how things stand after Punjab Kings (PBKS) handed Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) their third-successive defeat at home in IPL 2025 on Friday night.
RCB have now lost all their three games at home this season but Josh Hazlewood did his best to change the trend against PBKS, picking up 3 for 14 in what was a low-scoring, 14-overs-a-side contest.
With that, he has gone past Kuldeep Yadav of Delhi Capitals (DC), Hardik Pandya of Mumbai Indians (MI), Khaleel Ahmed of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Shardul Thakur of Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), who all have 11 wickets, as well as the big line-up of bowlers with ten wickets to their names: Prasidh Krishna, R Sai Kishore and Mohammed Siraj of Gujarat Titans (GT), Varun Chakravarthy and Harshit Rana of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Mitchell Starc of DC, while PBKS' Arshdeep Singh, after his 2 for 23 against RCB, is also on ten wickets now.
Hazlewood now has 12 wickets. The same as table-topper Noor Ahmad of Chennai Super Kings (CSK), who has led the pack since the second day of IPL 2025 when he picked up 4 for 18 against MI. But, while both of them have played seven games each, Noor has an economy rate of 7.12, while Hazlewood's stands at 8.17, deciding their order on the table.
Nicholas Pooran (LSG) is No. 1, B Sai Sudharsan (GT) is No. 2, and Mitchell Marsh (LSG) is No. 3, as has been the case for a while now. Below them is Suryakumar Yadav (MI) in fourth.
Shreyas Iyer, the PBKS captain, had a chance to move past Suryakumar to No. 4, or even to No. 3 edging Marsh, but his 7 in ten balls against RCB kept him in fifth place. Virat Kohli also had a similar opportunity, but scored just 1 in that game, and is still in sixth place.