Stats: Most wickets by Indian bowlers in an IPL season

Harshal Patel has been at the top of his A-game in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 and his numbers say it all. Playing for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), the right-arm pacer has made the ball talk and took wickets at all stages of the game. Unlike most of the top fast bowlers in the tournament, Patel doesn’t tend to set the speed gun on fire.

He instead relies on his accuracy and variations to get the better of the batters. Patel has been particularly brilliant at the latter stages of the game where batters look to accumulate quick runs. As a result, he has scalped as many as 26 wickets in his first 11 outings. He’s also the proud holder of the purple cap and is pretty certain to remain at the top of wicket-taking charts at the end of the tournament.

After all, the second-leading wicket-taker, Avesh Khan, has just 18 wickets in his arsenal. Meanwhile, Patel scripted history on Wednesday (September 29), becoming the uncapped bowler with most wickets in an IPL season. A three-wicket haul against Rajasthan Royals took his tally to 26 wickets in IPL 2021. With this, Patel overtook his RCB teammate Yuzvendra Chahal’s tally of 23 wickets in the 2014 edition.

Not to forget, the tournament is not over yet and it would be interesting to see how far he goes. Speaking of his heroics against RR, all of Patel’s three wickets came in the very last over the first innings. Riyan Parag was his first victim. The youngster couldn’t connect his off-cutter and gave catching practice to Virat Kohli at extra cover.

In the very next ball, Patel dismissed Chris Morris as the Proteas star failed to clear the ropes and got caught by Devdutt Padikkal towards deep extra cover. Although the pacer failed to take yet another hat-trick, he dismissed Chetan Sakariya off the last ball. The RR pacer couldn’t send Patel’s slower delivery to the long-boundary and AB de Villiers accepted the catch.

Most wickets by an Indian bowler in an IPL season:

Meanwhile, Patel’s tally of 26 wickets is the joint-second most by any Indian bowler in an IPL season. Bhuvneshwar Kumar also took as many wickets in the 2017 edition. He also won the purple cap in that season. The top spot is occupied by none other than Jasprit Bumrah as he scalped 27 wickets last season.  Harbhajan Singh and Jaydev Unadkat are the two in the top five, scalping 24 wickets in the 2013 and 2017 edition respectively.

Last Updated: September 29