'No point containing Pooran, you must get him out'
Piyush Chawla feels bowlers have very little margin for error against the LSG batter
More batters are crossing the 200-run mark, more bowlers have double-digits in the wickets' column, and here's a look at the Orange and Purple Cap leaderboards in IPL 2025 after Chennai Super Kings' (CSK) win over Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) on Monday night.
We now have 14 batters who have 200 or more runs and a bunch who are not far behind. But only two of them have crossed 300, and only one other is within a hit of that mark, and they remain - since not long after the tournament started - the top three.
On top is Nicholas Pooran (357 runs), despite a rare failure against CSK, followed by B Sai Sudharsan (329), followed by Mitchell Marsh (295).
But the competition is hotting up. Shreyas Iyer has touched 250 runs. Virat Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav are only a short way behind him. Jos Buttler, Travis Head, Tilak Varma, Phil Salt, Shubman Gill, Aiden Markram, Ajinkya Rahane and KL Rahul aren't going too badly either.
Pooran and Sai Sudharsan seem quite a way ahead at this stage, but a couple of lean games here and there, and a couple of big innings from a few of the chasing pack, and things could look quite different soon.
Which is the case with the Purple Cap table.
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Noor Ahmad had his first '0' in the wickets' column against LSG, but his 4-0-13-0 was most people's Player-of-the-Match performance in that game. He still has 12 wickets, though, and is still leading the pack.
But only one wicket behind are Khaleel Ahmed and Shardul Thakur. Khaleel got there with the one wicket he got against LSG, while Thakur went wicketless, missing a chance to match Noor, or even go past him.
At ten wickets, we currently have Kuldeep Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Prasidh Krishna, R Sai Kishore and Mohammed Siraj.