It was 159 plays 119 in Lucknow on Wednesday night as Rajasthan Royals (RR) put it past Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in their IPL 2026 game. With not a lot of runs coming, and 16 wickets falling, there was more activity on the Purple Cap table than on the one for the Orange Cap.
Prince Yadav picked up two wickets for LSG. Jofra Archer picked up three for RR.
That meant Prince, who has been one of the stories of the season so far, has now reached the top of the Purple Cap table. He has 13 wickets, the same as Anshul Kamboj of Chennai Super Kings (CSK), but at a superior economy rate – 8.38 to 9.73 – though he has bowled in one extra innings.
Archer is a little way below the leaders at this stage – Eshan Malinga of Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and Prasidh Krishna of Gujarat Titans (GT) have 12 apiece and are just below Prince and Kamboj – but with 11 wickets, he is up at No. 5.
That’s the same number Archer’s team-mate Ravi Bishnoi has reached after picking up one wicket against LSG, but his economy rate is 9.26 to Archer’s 7.96, the best for anyone in the top 16 at this point.
Not much changed here, with SRH’s Abhishek Sharma (323 runs) and Heinrich Klaasen (320 runs) still the one and two, and GT’s Shubman Gill (265 runs) at No. 3. But going past Virat Kohli of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) to fourth place is Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, the RR batter getting to 254 runs after scoring 8 against LSG. Kohli is at No. 5 with 247 runs.
