Ryan Ricketlon hammered 81 runs from 43 balls, and Rohit Sharma played a super knock of 78 runs from 38 balls on Sunday to help Mumbai Indians secure a big 6-wicket win over Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL 2026 match played at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. Rohit and Rickelton added 148 runs in 11.5 overs for the first wicket to give MI a flying start in the record run chase.
Ricketlon’s super show with the bat in MI’s season’s opener helped him leapfrog Ishan Kishan and become the new holder of Orange Cap in IPL 2026. Ishan, who scored 80 runs from 38 balls for Sunrisers Hyderabad on Saturday (March 28) against RCB at M Chinnaswamy Stadium, is now in 2nd in the Orange Cap leaderboard.
Rohit’s 78-run knock helped him take third position, and he is
followed by Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane and Devdutt Padikkal, who have 69, 67 and 61 runs to their name, respectively.
IPL 2026 Orange Cap leaderboard
| POSITION | PLAYER | TEAM | MATCHES | RUNS |
| 1. | Ryan Rickelton | Mumbai Indians | 1 | 81 |
| 2. | Ishan Kishan | Sunrisers Hyderabad | 1 | 80 |
| 3. | Rohit Sharma | Mumbai Indians | 1 | 78 |
| 4. | Virat Kohli | Royal Challengers Bengaluru | 1 | 69 |
| 5. | Ajinkya Rahane | Kolkata Knight Riders | 1 | 67 |
| 6. | Devdutt Padikkal | Royal Challengers Bengaluru | 1 | 61 |
| 7. | Angkrish Raghuvanshi | Kolkata Knight Riders | 1 | 51 |
| 8. | Aniket Verma | Sunrisers Hyderabad | 1 | 43 |
| 9. | Finn Allen | Kolkata Knight Riders | 1 | 37 |
| 10. | Rinku Singh | Kolkata Knight Riders | 1 | 33 |
New Zealand’s Jacob Duffy, who made his IPL debut on Saturday and picked up 3 wickets for 22 runs in four overs, is leading the Purple Cap but Mumbai Indians’ fast bowler Shardul Thakur has jumped to 2nd position. Like Duffy, Shardul also picked up three wickets in his first match of IPL 2026.
IPL 2026 Purple Cap leaderboard
| POSITION | PLAYER | TEAM | MATCHES | WICKETS | BEST FIGURES |
| 1. | Jacob Duffy | Royal Challengers Bengaluru | 1 | 3 | 3/22 |
| 2. | Shardul Thakur | Mumbai Indians | 1 | 3 | 3/39 |
| 3. | Romario Shepherd | Royal Challengers Bengaluru | 1 | 3 | 3/54 |
| 4. | David Payne | Sunrisers Hyderabad | 1 | 2 | 2/35 |
| 5. | Bhuvneshwar Kumar | Royal Challengers Bengaluru | 1 | 1 | 1/31 |
| 6. | Suyash Sharma | Royal Challengers Bengaluru | 1 | 1 | 1/28 |
| 7. | Jaydev Unadkat | Sunrisers Hyderabad | 1 | 1 | 1/29 |
| 8. | Sunil Narine | Kolkata Knight Riders | 1 | 1 | 1/30 |
| 9. | Kartik Tyagi | Kolkata Knight Riders | 1 | 1 | 1/43 |
| 10. | Harsh Dubey | Sunrisers Hyderabad | 1 | 1 | 1/35 |
For his super show with the ball in his first IPL match for Mumbai Indians, Shardul, who captains Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy, bagged the Player Of The Match (POTM) award.
In the high-voltage MI-KKR match, Shardul opened his wicket account by taking Finn Allen’s wicket on the second ball of his first over, and in his second over, he got rid of Cameron Green. Green, who was signed for Rs 25.20 crore by KKR in the IPL 2026 auction, could only manage to score 18 runs from 10 balls.
Shardul’s third wicket came in the form of Ajinkya Rahane. Rahane, who top-scored for KKR against MI on Sunday, was caught by Hardik Pandya in his third over of the match.
