Purple Cap in IPL 2024 after SRH vs RCB: T Natarajan struck twice to climb to fifth position in the Purple Cap race.
T Natarajan bagged two wickets on Thursday to climb to fifth place in the IPL 2024 Purple Cap race, but failed to prevent a defeat for Sunrisers Hyderabad. Mumbai Indians pacer Jasprit Bumrah currently occupies pole position in the Purple Cap race with 13 wickets in eight matches, and is closely followed by Rajasthan Royals spinner Yuzvendra Chahal (13) in second position. PBKS star Harshal Patel (13) is third, followed by Kuldeep Yadav (12) and Natarajan in fourth and fifth respectively.
T Natarajan celebrates a wicket for SRH.(IPL-X)
Royal Challengers Bangalore successfully defended a target of 207 runs, restricting SRH to 171/8 in 20 overs, and winning by 35 runs. Cameron Green, Karn Sharma and Swapnil Singh took two wickets each for RCB respectively. Initially, dominant half-centuries from Virat Kohli (51) and Rajat Patidar (50) saw RCB post 206/7 in 20 overs. For SRH’s bowling department, Jaydev Unadkat took three wickets.
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Speaking after the match, RCB skipper Faf du Plessis said, “Last two games, we’ve shown great signs of fight. SRH game was 270 plus, we got 260. KKR game as well – 1 run. We’ve been close for a while, but you need to win matches to get confidence as a group. Will sleep easier tonight. You can’t speak confidence into the group, can’t fake confidence into the group. Only thing that gives confidence is performances.”
“The competition is so strong, the teams are so strong that you’ll get hurt if you’re not at 100 percent. More guys scoring runs now. First half of the tournament only Virat was scoring runs. Greeny scoring runs now will be massive for him. We know that Chinnaswamy, that’s been a big frustration for us. It’s a difficult ground to bowl at. We’ve tried to find a recipe for it, but it’s tough,” he added.
Meanwhile, Player of the Match Patidar said, “I was just keeping things in my mind that control the controllables. Whenever I go back home, I try to solve every problem which I faced. I go for skilful batting setup. Nothing like that (plan to target spin?). Today I was backing myself to be in good shape against every bowler.”
