(Cricket news) The sight of stumps flying leaving the batsman with no clues is every bowler’s perfect dismissal and only the best of the best have done it continuously. The IPL has been a stage for bowlers to shine as there are fewer balls to bowl and it always gets intense from the start. Brett Lee dismissing Unmukt Chand in the very ball of IPL in 2013 is still a memory worth reliving, the fast bowlers have ruled the game in most of the seasons and the spinners have been on top overall.
In terms of wickets, yorker legend Lasith Malinga is on top with 170 wickets and is closely followed by spinner Amit Mishra who has 166 wickets. This year we might be able to see an Indian in the top of the bowlers list but Mishra is closely followed by Dwayne Bravo and Piyush Chawla. The spinners are flooding the top ten as only Bravo and Malinga being the pacers in the list as the next ten are only pacers.
The best bowling figures belong to Alzarri Joseph who in 2019 became the third player to pick up a six wicket haul while playing for Mumbai Indians. Sohail Tanvir was the first one to take six wickets in a single game in IPL, he was playing for Rajasthan Royals in 2008 and did it against Chennai Super Kings. Adam Zampa did it 8 years later while playing for Rising Pune Supergiants and as of now is the only spinner in the IPL to have done it. The five wicket haul has been recorded on multiple occasions with only two bowlers doing it twice, Jaydev Unadkat and James Faulkner. Faulkner did it twice in 2013 while playing for Rajasthan Royals, the first Indian to do it was Lakshmipathy Balaji in the 2008 season while donning the Chennai Super Kings jersey.
IPL also has been recording the fastest balls bowled since 2012 and South African speedster Anrich Nortje has bowled the top three fastest balls in the history of the league, he bowled all of them in the 2020 season with the fastest one recorded at 156.22 km/hour. The fastest Indian is Navdeep Saini who bowled a 152.85 km/hour in the 2019 season, the 2016 season saw the least number of times bowlers crossing the 150km mark as only it was passed twice and in the 2020 season it happened on a record 71 occasions.
In the Orange cap holders, Bravo and Bhuvaneshwar Kumar are the bowlers to wear it twice with Bhuvaneshwar being the only bowler to do it consecutive times. In the 13 editions so far every leading wicket taker has managed to take more than 20 wickets a season, with the lowest being 21 in the 2010 season by spinner Pragyan Ojha and the highest by Bravo in 2013 when he took 32 wickets. Spinners have worn the cap twice, Ojha in 2010 and Imran Tahir in 2019 and the first Indian bowler to wear it was RP Singh in the 2009 edition.
Chennai Super Kings have been able to top the bowling charts on three occasions, Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore are yet to do it. The 2013 season saw a record 9 bowlers taking 20 wickets or more and the 2008, 2010 season saw only a single bowler taking 20 wickets or more.
Balaji was the first player to take a hat-trick in the league, he took three in three against Punjab Kings in the very first edition which saw a total of three hat- tricks in a record span of 8 days. Amit Mishra has a record three hat tricks to his name and Yuvraj Singh has the record of doing it twice in a single season in 2009. This year many records are at stake, with the bowling friendly pitch in UAE we can surely hope to see the wickets tumbling and look forward to the race for the Orange cap.
Also read: Harshal Patel leading the race for purple cap in first phase of Indian Premier League
