Hazlewood takes Purple Cap, RCB take first place, David unleashes

Josh Hazlewood has tightened his grip on the 2025 IPL Purple Cap with another two wickets in Royal Challengers Bengaluru's six-wicket win over Delhi Capitals overnight.

Hazlewood took 2-36 from his four overs, which included ripping out the middle stump of Delhi captain Axar Patel, to take him to 18 wickets for the season, two ahead of Gujarat Titans' Prasidh Krishna.

The leading wicket-taker at the IPL wins the 'Purple Cap', something achieved by an Australian only once, when Andrew Tye claimed 24 wickets for Punjab Kings in 2018.

Hazlewood began the evening in Delhi with the opening wicket of the match, strangling Abishek Porel down the leg-side after a fast start by the home side. 

He was then brought back into the attack in the middle overs and removed the dangerous Axar (who was coming off scores of 34, 39 and 34no), getting just enough movement towards to the batter to beat the bat and flatten the middle peg.

Delhi made 8-162 thanks to a cameo from South African Tristan Stubbs (34 off 18), who was eventually caught by Hazlewood off the bowling off Bhuvneshwar Kumar (3-33) on the penultimate ball of the innings. 

In reply, Mitch Starc's hunt for early wickets was unsuccessful as Virat Kohli (51 off 47) set about building the chase. 

Starc's first over cost 15 runs and his night didn't get much better from there - he was robbed of a potentially match-changing moment when Krunal Pandya, then on 54, was dropped by Porel in the deep. 

Instead, Starc's night ended without the gun quick bowling his allotted four overs and figures of 0-31 as Krunal went on a rampage, powering his way to 73no off 47. 

With 17 needed from the final two overs, Tim David took strike to Mukesh Kumar and finished the match in a flash, going 6, 4+nb, 4, 4 to wrap up the victory with nine balls to spare. 

RCB's win means they became the first team in IPL history to win their first six away games of a season and takes them a game clear on top of the standings. 

"We all know the world-class bowler Josh has been," enthused Kohli after watching Hazlewood take his tally for the campaign to 18 scalps at 17.27 apiece. 

"You know, the difference for us this year is he's been absolutely world-class. There's a reason why he has the purple cap on his head."

Mitch Marsh has Tim David-type power in abundance but Australia's T20 captain couldn't quite display it for long enough in Sunday's other IPL match as his Lucknow Super Giants fell to a 54-run defeat at Mumbai Indians' Wankhede Stadium home.

Suryakumar Yadav (54 off 28) and Ryan Rickelton (58 off 32) hit half-centuries as Mumbai amassed 7-215 and Marsh was impressive at the start of the chase, cracking 34 off 24, including one enormous six off the formidable Jasprit Bumrah.

But once he'd holed out to his excellent old Kiwi rival Trent Boult (3-20), the game was soon up for the Justin Langer-coached Lucknow, who collapsed to 161 all out, with Bumrah (4-22), as per usual, the chief destroyer.