Three players in contention for Orange Cap

Last season, Ruturaj Gaikwad beat out former teammate Faf du Plessis, who now plays for Royal Challengers Bangalore, by two runs to bag the Orange Cap.

Now that stars from the IPL Mega Auction have been assigned to new franchises, some players are making an immediate impression. Here are the top 3 candidates for the IPL Orange Cap in 2022.

Jos Buttler

IPL 2022 has been the year of Jos Buttler as he has 491 runs in just seven innings of the season so far. 491 is the most runs ever scored in 7 matches of IPL by a player. The biggest shocker is that he has already scored three centuries in the season and will probably break Virat Kohli's record to score the most number of centuries (four) in a single season. Jos Buttler has been the biggest match-winner for Rajasthan Royals this year as he's performing with unreal consistency and giving the franchise a dream start in every match.

South African Mornie Morkel said, "It's just the quality of a player. That's why teams pay big dollars for players like Buttler to put pressure on the bowling attack. He's a guy that if you don't get him early, he will take the game away completely and destroy all the plans the opposing captain makes." 

He's leading the run charts currently and will be the favourite one to end up with an orange cap. His average is 81.83, which is a glimpse of his current form. No one's even close to the England opener in the race of orange cap.

KL Rahul

KL Rahul is a player who is never far from the orange cap as he almost always finishes in the top 5 run-scorer of the league every season. The Indian white-ball opener has 265 runs in 7 matches so far at an average of 44.16, which is impressive. He was successful in winning the orange cap in IPL 2020. Since then, he has never looked back and is always the top scorer for whichever franchise he plays. 

This year, Rahul is leading a new team Lucknow Super Giants and performing up to his standards as he has the third-highest runs in the league so far, including one century. Even though KL Rahul has fewer runs than Hardik, he has more chances of winning the cap because of his consistency which can be seen from the previous seasons of the IPL.

Hardik Pandya

The Indian all-rounder is being seen in a new role this season as he has promoted himself up the order and is batting at numbers 3 and 4 every game. Pandya has already scored 295 runs in the six matches he has played. If he had to miss one match due to injury, Hardik would have been close to Jos Buttler in the list of most runs. 

The skipper of the new team, Gujarat Titans, has reclaimed himself after a poor performance in the previous IPL as he is delivering from both bat and ball for the franchise and is one of the top contenders for winning the orange cap this year. He has an average of 73.75 as of now, which is the second-best on the list.