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Bhuvneshwar Kumar continued his good form with the ball and picked four wickets for his side, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), in the IPL 2026 match against Mumbai Indians (MI) in Raipur on Sunday.
The 36-year-old seamer is leading the wicket charts with 21 wickets and is the current holder of the Purple Cap. This is the fourth time he has taken 20+ wickets in an IPL season. Kumar has won the Purple Cap twice before -- first in 2016 and then in the 2017 season. He has taken 12 wickets in the powerplay with an economy rate of 6.91. He picked the wickets of Rohit Sharma, Ryan Rickelton, Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma in the match, while conceding 23 runs in his full quota of four overs. This is the sixth occasion on which he has picked a three-wicket haul this season. Only Harshal Patel has achieved this feat before. Patel took six three-wicket hauls in the 2021 season. Despite Bhuvneshwar's lethal bowling, MI's Naman Dhir and Tilak steered the team to a respectable total of 166/7 in 20 overs after being asked to bat first at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium. Tilak brought up his fifty off 37 balls in the 17th over as MI's score read 149/5 after 17 overs. However, Bhuvneshwar returned to continue haunting the MI batting lineup as he got rid of Tilak in the 18th over, reducing MI to the score of 155/6. Hazlewood (1/43 in 4 overs) delivered a brilliant penultimate over as he got rid of RCB's Raj Bawa (16) and conceded only six runs. With MI's Corbin Bosch and Deepak Chahar at the crease, Rasikh Salam Dar delivered the last over and gave away only five runs, restricting 166/7 in 20 overs. RCB, who came into the match on the back of two successive defeats, will need 167 runs to win and inch closer to solidifying their chances of a final four finish. (ANI)
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