By SRTeam Every year, IPL isn’t just about winning that Trophy, nah, it is also about the fun, the records, and the fact like who would win the purple or orange cap. IPL 2021 was quite an impressive season for the purple and orange cap leaderboard because we saw so many players compete for these titles, so let’s talk about it a little more.
IPL 2021 Purple Cap Winner: Harshal Patel
Yes, it was Harshal Patel in IPL 2021 who took the purple cap home with a whopping 32 wickets in just 15 matches he played in the entire season. And the super interesting fact is that, while playing for the side of RCB (Royal Challengers Bangalore), he took 32 wickets, which were the highest ever wickets taken by a bowler in just one season, like it had never happened before in the history of IPL. Sure, this prime performance of Harshal Patel came in 2021, but you shouldn’t forget that he has been playing in the IPL ever since 2012, and back then also, he was part of the RCB squad.
And because he did phenomenally well in the IPL 2021, he actually went on to make his way in the 2022 T20 World Cup squad, though he didn’t get any chance to play any game at that time. In IPL, though, when RCB released him, he went on to play for Punjab Kings, and as of 2025, well, he’s part of the SRH (Sunrisers Hyderabad) team.
IPL 2021 Orange Cap Winner: Ruturaj Gaikwad
Can you even imagine that you debut in IPL in 2020, and just the next season, you go on to win the orange cap by scoring the highest runs in the entire tournament? Well, that is precisely what Ruturaj Gaikwad did. While playing for CSK in 2021, he only scored about 204, and that was just a decent performance. But then, in 2021, he got even more chances to show off his skills, and you know what he did? Well, he went on to score a whopping 635 runs, with a 101* score and 4 fifties to his name in that very season of IPL.
So, no wonder he took the Orange cap home in IPL 2021. After that, though, he scored big for his team in the next IPL seasons as well, and since it is the 18th IPL season going on at the moment, he’s actually out of the team because he got injured while doing net practice. So, in his place, now MS Dhoni is captaining the CSK team.