Prince Yadav made a big move in the IPL 2026 Purple Cap race after his match-winning spell helped Lucknow Super Giants beat Royal Challengers Bengaluru by nine runs. The LSG fast bowler finished with figures of 3 for 33 and climbed to joint-second on the wicket-takers’ list.
Prince’s biggest moment came early when he dismissed Virat Kohli for a second-ball duck. The delivery was a beauty and gave LSG a huge breakthrough against one of RCB’s most important batters. From there, Prince continued to bowl with confidence and played a key role in stopping RCB’s chase.
With his three wickets, Prince moved to 16 wickets for the season. He is now level with Gujarat Titans’ Kagiso Rabada and Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Eshan Malinga. However, Prince is placed ahead of them because of his better economy rate. Prince has gone at 8.08 runs per over, while Rabada has an economy of 9.23 and Malinga has gone at 9.44.
At the top of the Purple Cap table, Bhuvneshwar Kumar of RCB and Anshul Kamboj of Chennai Super Kings remain ahead with 17 wickets each. Bhuvneshwar had a chance to move clear at the top, but he went wicketless against LSG.
There was no major change in the Orange Cap race. Kohli stayed on 379 runs after failing to score against Lucknow. Mitchell Marsh, however, made a strong jump after his brilliant 111 off 56 balls took him to 367 runs for the season.
The Orange Cap table is still led by Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Heinrich Klaasen with 494 runs, followed by Abhishek Sharma with 475. KL Rahul, Ishan Kishan and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi complete the top five.
