Orange Cap/Most Runs
The prestigious Orange Cap is awarded to the batter who ends up as the highest run-scorer in an Indian Premier League (IPL) season. The Orange Cap was introduced in the inaugural season of the IPL back in 2008, just a week after the tournament commenced.
Over the years, the Orange Cap has also acted as a meter for being consistent throughout the tournament and is a factor of encouragement.
The first player to don the Orange Cap during an IPL season was Brendon McCullum in 2008, and the first player to win the Orange Cap at the end of a season was Shaun Marsh, who scored 616 runs for Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) that year.
RCB's Virat Kohli and former RCB star AB de Villiers are a couple of big name players to have won the Orange Cap at the end of the season. As have the likes of Chris Gayle and David Warner.
Kohli, in fact, holds the record of scoring most runs in a single IPL season. The Delhi-born cricketer had amassed 973 runs from 16 matches in 2016, the year when RCB reached their third and most recent IPL final. It is also important to note that Gujarat Titans' Shubman Gill did come close last season, when he scored 890 runs, but was not able to cross the 900-run barrier.
In 2010, Sachin Tendulkar became the first Indian to win the Orange Cap after he scored 618 runs for MI that season. Chris Gayle would go onto win the Orange Cap in consecutive editions in 2011 and 2012, having scored 608 runs and 733 runs respectively.
Robin Uthappa (660) and David Warner (562) won it in 2014 and 2015, followed by Virat Kohli’s record-breaking achievement in 2016. Since then, the Orange Cap’s maiden winners have been Kane Williamson (2017), KL Rahul (2020), Ruturaj Gaikwad (2021), Jos Buttler (2022) and Shubman Gill (2023).