Prince Yadav's purple cap run is the one bright note in an LSG season coming apart at the seams
Lucknow Super Giants spent most of Wednesday evening watching Rajasthan Royals defend 159 for six with something to spare, then listening to Rishabh Pant admit, at the post-match presentation, that he did not have the answers. A 40-run defeat at the Ekana made it four straight, 159 is now the lowest total successfully defended all season, and the playoff maths is starting to look unfriendly. Somehow, in the middle of all that, LSG still have the IPL 2026 Purple Cap on their shelf.
Prince Yadav moved to the top of the wicket-taker list on Wednesday night. The uncapped 24-year-old has 13 wickets in seven matches at an economy of 8.38. He is level with Chennai Super Kings' Anshul Kamboj on wickets but ahead of him on economy, and with the next cluster of bowlers a wicket or two behind, the cap is his for now.
A second IPL season that is going better than his team's
Prince has been on the IPL scene for barely a year. This is his second season at Lucknow and he still has no senior India cap. But the headline figures do not need one. He has bowled a tough powerplay overs, he has kept his economy under nine on surfaces where most of the seamers have pushed well past that, and he has struck more or less every time he has been thrown the ball.
There is also something faintly cruel about this. The one player who has delivered almost exactly what LSG wanted from him is the one playing in a side that has lost four on the bounce and is staring at a rebuild. Prince has been the constant. The batting has not. The captaincy has not.
Who is chasing him
Kamboj at CSK has the same 13 wickets but an economy closer to 9.7, which reflects a different kind of role at the death. Eshan Malinga at Sunrisers Hyderabad is next with 12. Prasidh Krishna, the Gujarat Titans' leading wicket-taker, is on 12 as well. Jofra Archer, back in form for Rajasthan, is on 11 and climbing after his three-for at the Ekana on Wednesday.
Two things stand out about that list. First, the Purple Cap is being shared between four franchises in different parts of the table, which is unusual this deep into a season. Second, the only genuinely uncapped name at the top is the one in Lucknow blue.
What happens if LSG stay in a skid
Lucknow have seven more league games to find a way to hold 170 on this Ekana surface, or to stop chasing 180 four times in a row. If they cannot, Prince will be in the odd position of collecting a personal award from a team that did not make the playoffs. It would not be the first time in IPL history, but it would still feel like the season's sharpest little footnote.
For now, the cap sits on the right head. The rest of Lucknow's house is a different story.
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