IPL 2026 Orange Cap: 7 matches 328 runs… Virat Kohli snatched the number one chair from Abhishek Sharma

New Delhi. The excitement of IPL 2026 is at its peak. The race for the Orange and Purple Cap is becoming more interesting with each passing match. When the teams of Royal Challengers Bangalore and Gujarat Titans came face to face in the 34th match of the tournament, no one thought that after a single match, there would be such a big change in the ranking of the batsmen. In this match, the explosive innings from the bat of Virat Kohli not only led Bengaluru to victory, but also brought ‘King Kohli’ to the peak of runs once again.

The match started with strong batting by Gujarat Titans. After losing the toss and opting to bat first, the Gujarat team adopted an aggressive approach from the very beginning. The main attraction of Gujarat’s innings was the young batsman Sai Sudarshan, who defeated the Bengaluru bowlers by hitting shots all around the field. Sudarshan played a brilliant century of 100 runs facing just 58 balls. During this innings, he hit 11 fours and 5 skyscraper sixes. Thanks to this marathon inning of Sudarshan, Gujarat Titans scored a huge score of 205 runs after losing 3 wickets in the stipulated 20 overs. Bengaluru had a tough target of 206 runs, which was not considered easy to achieve.

Kohli’s ‘Virat’ avatar and Bengaluru’s counterattack
While chasing the target, Royal Challengers Bangalore had a slow but aggressive start. All eyes were on Virat Kohli, who was out of the top-5 race for Orange Cap before this match. Kohli showed his class in this match and played an unmatched inning of 81 runs in 44 balls. His innings included 8 fours and 4 brilliant sixes. Virat scored runs in every corner of the field and shook the confidence of the opposition bowlers.

Virat Kohli has reached number one in the Orange Cap race.

Devdutt Padikkal also performed the responsibility of supporting Virat very well. Padikkal scored 55 runs in just 27 balls, which included 2 fours and 5 sixes. Thanks to the innings of these two batsmen, RCB achieved the target of 206 runs by losing 5 wickets in just 18.5 overs. Although Rashid Khan took two wickets for Gujarat, he proved to be very expensive and gave away 49 runs in his quota of 4 overs.

‘Commotion’ in Orange Cap race
After this match, the Orange Cap list of IPL 2026 has completely changed. Virat Kohli, who was out of the top-5 before the match, has now directly reached the first position. Virat has scored 328 runs in 7 matches so far this season and he has currently become the highest run-scoring batsman. Just behind Virat is the name of Sunrisers Hyderabad’s young opening batsman Abhishek Sharma. Abhishek has also impressed with his batting this season and he is in second place with 323 runs in 7 matches. His own teammate and Hyderabad’s explosive wicketkeeper batsman Heinrich Klaasen remains in third place after scoring 320 runs in 7 matches. The difference in runs between these two batsmen of Hyderabad and Virat Kohli is very less, due to which this battle is going to be even more interesting in the coming matches.

Gill’s return and Sanju’s struggle
Even though this match was not good for Gujarat Titans captain Shubman Gill in terms of team victory, but individually he has secured his place in the top-5. Gill has now come fourth in the Orange Cap list with 297 runs in 6 matches. At the same time, Sanju Samson, playing for Chennai Super Kings, has slipped to fifth position with 293 runs in 7 matches.