Mohit Sharma of Chennai Super Kings finished as the leading wicket-taker for the 2014 season © IANS
Mohit Sharma of Chennai Super Kings finished as the leading wicket-taker for the 2014 season with 23 scalps © IANS

With Indian Premier League (IPL) 8 all set to begin, Bharath Seervi lists the five bowlers with most wickets in each season and highest wicket-takers for all teams in each season.

IPL began as a batsmen’s game, but has seen the improvement of bowlers and their strategies as the time went on. The first season had an average run rate of 8.31 which is the highest among all the six IPL seasons played later. The third (8.12) and seventh seasons (8.19) were the only seasons that had average run rate of more than 8 runs per over. READ: IPL 2015 Opening Ceremony: A night marred by rain and bloopers

Let’s list the top five wicket-takers of each of the previous seven seasons of this most viewed cricket tournament. READ: IPL 2015 will be about young and fresh talent

IPL 2008

Most wickets in the tournament:

Bowler Team Inns W BBI Ave Econ SR 4WIs 5WIs
Sohail Tanvir RR 11 22 6/14 12.09 6.46 11.2 1 1
Shane Warne RR 15 19 3/19 21.26 7.76 16.4 0 0
S Sreesanth KXIP 15 19 3/29 23.26 8.63 16.1 0 0
Shane Watson RR 15 17 3/10 22.52 7.07 19.1 0 0
Piyush Chawla KXIP 15 17 3/25 22.88 8.30 16.5 0 0
Albie Morkel CSK 13 17 4/32 23.47 8.31 16.9 1 0
Manpreet Gony CSK 16 17 3/34 26.05 7.38 21.1 0 0

Sohail Tanvir played only 11 matches compared to his competitors who played around 15 matches but took most wickets in the tournament including 6 for 14 against the Chennai Super Kings (CSK). It still remains the best bowling figures in the history of IPL and the only six-wicket haul. READ: IPL 2015: Rahul Dravid and the art of cricket team management

Highest wicket takers for each team in the tournament:

Team Wickets Bowler Strike Rate
Chennai Super Kings 17 Albie Morkel 16.9
17 Manpreet Gony 21.1
Deccan Chargers 14 RP Singh 20.5
Delhi Daredevils 16 Yo Mahesh 15.8
Kings XI Punjab 19 Sreesanth 16.1
Kolkata Knight Riders 12 Umar Gul 11.2
Mumbai Indians 12 Ashish Nehra 22.4
Rajasthan Royals 22 Sohail Tanvir 11.2
Royal Challengers Bangalore 13 Zaheer Khan 19.3

IPL 2009

Most wickets in the tournament:

Bowler Team Inns W BBI Ave Econ SR 4WIs 5WIs
RP Singh DC 16 23 4/22 18.13 6.98 15.5 1 0
Anil Kumble RCB 16 21 5/5 16.52 5.86 16.9 1 1
Ashish Nehra DD 13 19 3/27 18.21 6.78 16.1 0 0
Lasith Malinga MI 13 18 3/11 17.33 6.30 16.5 0 0
Pragyan Ojha DC 15 18 3/21 19.33 6.50 17.8 0 0

RP Singh became the first Indian to win the Purple Cap. It was also the first edition of IPL held outside India. It was hosted by South Africa.

Highest wicket takers for each team in the tournament:

Team Wickets Bowler Strike Rate
Chennai Super Kings 14 Muttiah Muralitharan 21.4
Deccan Chargers 23 RP Singh 15.5
Delhi Daredevils 19 Ashish Nehra 16.1
Kings XI Punjab 17 Irfan Pathan 17.7
Kolkata Knight Riders 11 Ishant Sharma 23.4
Mumbai Indians 18 Lasith Malinga 16.5
Rajasthan Royals 16 Munaf Patel 13.0
Royal Challengers Bangalore 21 Anil Kumble 16.9

While overseas batsmen have dominated the charts, Indian bowlers have done a commendable job, outdoing their counterparts with the willow in IPL. Time to think for the “fans”?

IPL 2010

Most wickets in the tournament:

Bowler Team Inns W BBI Ave Econ SR 4WIs 5WIs
Pragyan Ojha DC 16 21 3/26 20.42 7.29 16.8 0 0
Amit Mishra DD 14 17 3/25 21.35 6.84 18.7 0 0
Harbhajan Singh MI 14 17 3/31 22.17 7.04 18.8 0 0
Anil Kumble RCB 16 17 4/16 23.94 6.42 22.3 1 0
Vinay Kumar RCB 14 16 4/40 24.75 8.57 17.3 1 0

All the top five wicket-takers were Indians in the third edition of the tournament which played in India. For the second consecutive time the Purple Cap went to the bowler from Deccan Chargers (DC).

Highest wicket takers for each team in the tournament

Team Wickets Bowler Strike Rate
Chennai Super Kings 15 Muttiah Muralitharan 19.2
Deccan Chargers 21 Pragyan Ojha 16.8
Delhi Daredevils 17 Amit Mishra 18.7
Kings XI Punjab 15 Irfan Pathan 18.5
Kolkata Knight Riders 9 Ashok Dinda 15.4
9 Shane Bond 20.6
9 Murali Kartik 26.0
Mumbai Indians 17 Harbhajan Singh 18.8
Rajasthan Royals 11 Siddharth Trivedi 19.3
11 Shane Warne 27.2
Royal Challengers Bangalore 17 Anil Kumble 22.3

While the highest wicket taker of the tournament had 21 wickets, the highest number of wickets by anyone for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) was not even 10. Ashok Dinda, Shane Bond and Murali Kartik were all tied on nine wickets each in the tournament.

IPL 2011

Most wickets in the tournament

Bowler Team Inns W BBI Ave Econ SR 4WIs 5WIs
Lasith Malinga MI 16 28 5/13 13.39 5.95 13.5 0 1
Munaf Patel MI 15 22 5/21 16.27 6.58 14.8 0 1
Sreenath Aravind RCB 13 21 4/14 17.52 8.00 13.1 1 0
Ravichandran Ashwin CSK 16 20 3/16 19.40 6.15 18.9 0 0
Amit Mishra DC 14 19 4/9 18.84 6.71 16.8 1 0

For the second time the top two wicket-takers in the tournament were from the same team. In the inaugural IPL edition the Rajasthan Royals (RR) bowlers Tanvir and Shane Warne were the highest wicket takers.

At this point Lasith Malinga held the record for the most wickets by a bowler in a single IPL edition overcoming RP Singh’s 23 wickets in 2009 season.

Highest wicket taker for each team in the tournament

Team Wickets Bowler Strike Rate
Chennai Super Kings 20 Ravichandran Ashwin 18.9
Deccan Chargers 19 Amit Mishra 16.8
Delhi Daredevils 13 Morne Morkel 19.8
Kings XI Punjab 16 Piyush Chawla 15.5
16 Ryan Harris 17.6
Kochi Tuskers Kerala 13 RP Singh 23.0
Kolkata Knight Riders 16 Iqbal Abdulla 18.7
Mumbai Indians 28 Lasith Malinga 13.5
Pune Warriors India 16 Rahul Sharma 18.7
Rajasthan Royals 13 Shane Warne 21.6
Royal Challengers Bangalore 21 Sreenath Aravind 13.1

The highest wicket-taker for each team had taken at least 13 wickets in the tournament. Due to increase in number of teams to ten, the number of matches played by each team was also more compared to previous seasons.

IPL 2012

Most wickets in the tournament

Bowler Team Inns W BBI Ave Econ SR 4WIs 5WIs
Morne Morkel DD 16 25 4/20 18.12 7.19 15.1 1 0
Sunil Narine KKR 15 24 5/19 13.50 5.47 14.7 1 1
Lasith Malinga MI 14 22 4/16 15.90 6.30 15.1 1 0
Umesh Yadav DD 17 19 3/19 23.84 7.42 19.2 0 0
Vinay Kumar RCB 14 19 3/22 25.26 8.59 17.6 0 0

The top three bowlers were all overseas players, and were the only players to take more than 20 wickets in the tournament.

It was the first time a bowler from Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) appeared among the top five wicket takers in the tournament: Sunil Narine, on his debut IPL season and missed the Purple Cap by just a wicket.

Highest wicket takers for each team in the tournament

Team Wickets Bowler Strike Rate
Chennai Super Kings 15 Dwayne Bravo 23.0
Deccan Chargers 18 Dale Steyn 15.5
Delhi Daredevils 25 Morne Morkel 15.1
Kings XI Punjab 17 Parvinder Awana 16.5
Kolkata Knight Riders 24 Sunil Narine 14.7
Mumbai Indians 22 Lasith Malinga 15.1
Pune Warriors India 11 Ashish Nehra 26.1
Rajasthan Royals 13 Siddharth Trivedi 24.0
Royal Challengers Bangalore 19 Vinay Kumar 17.6

IPL 2013

Most wickets in the tournament:

Bowler Team Inns W BBI Ave Econ SR 4WIs 5WIs
Dwayne Bravo CSK 18 32 4/42 15.53 7.95 11.7 1 0
James Faulkner RR 16 28 5/16 15.25 6.75 13.5 0 2
Harbhajan Singh MI 19 24 3/14 19.00 6.51 17.5 0 0
Mitchell Johnson MI 17 24 3/27 19.12 7.17 16.0 0 0
Vinay Kumar RCB 16 23 3/18 21.43 8.19 15.6 0 0

Dwayne Bravo became the first bowler to take more than 30 wickets in a single IPL edition. He took 32 wickets in 18 innings. James Faulkner’s 28 wickets included two five-wicket hauls, both against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). He is still the only bowler to take two five-wicket hauls in the history of IPL.

Highest wicket takers for each team in the tournament:

Team Wickets Bowler Strike Rate
Chennai Super Kings 32 Dwayne Bravo 11.7
Delhi Daredevils 16 Umesh Yadav 21.6
Kings XI Punjab 15 Azhar Mahmood 17.5
15 Parvinder Awana 21.6
Kolkata Knight Riders 22 Sunil Narine 17.4
Mumbai Indians 24 Harbhajan Singh 17.5
24 Mitchell Johnson 16.0
Pune Warriors India 16 Ashok Dinda 18.3
Rajasthan Royals 28 James Faulkner 13.5
Royal Challengers Bangalore 23 Vinay Kumar 15.6
Sunrisers Hyderabad 21 Amit Mishra 17.7

Sunil Narine continued his form and took another 22 wickets in the 2013 edition and remained KKR’s highest wicket taker of the tournament.

IPL 2014

Bowler Team Inns W BBI Ave Econ SR 4WIs 5WIs
Mohit Sharma CSK 16 23 4/14 19.65 8.39 14.0 1 0
Sunil Narine KKR 16 21 4/20 19.38 6.35 18.2 2 0
Bhuvneshwar Kumar SRH 14 20 4/14 17.70 6.65 15.9 1 0
Ravindra Jadeja CSK 16 19 4/12 23.31 8.15 17.1 2 0
Sandeep Sharma KXIP 11 18 3/15 19.66 8.81 13.3 0 0

Highest wicket takers for each team in the tournament

Team Wickets Bowler Strike Rate
Chennai Super Kings 23 Mohit Sharma 14.0
Delhi Daredevils 9 Imran Tahir 13.8
9 Jaydev Unadkat 20.7
Kings XI Punjab 18 Sandeep Sharma 13.3
Kolkata Knight Riders 21 Sunil Narine 18.2
Mumbai Indians 16 Lasith Malinga 14.6
Rajasthan Royals 15 Pravin Tambe 19.6
Royal Challengers Bangalore 16 Varun Aaron 13.7
Sunrisers Hyderabad 20 Bhuvneshwar Kumar 15.9

With 22 wickets, Sunil Narine again took the highest number of wickets for KKR. He remains one of the major reasons that his team won two of the last three IPL editions.

Appearing among the top five wicket takers of the season most number of times

Malinga and Vinay Kumar have appeared in the top five thrice each. Malinga made the cut in 2009, 2011 and 2012, while Vinay Kumar in 2010, 2012 and 2013.

Several bowlers have appeared twice. The ones to do in consecutive seasons are Anil Kumble (2009, 2010), Amit Mishra (2010, 2011) and Ojha (2009, 2010).

Being team’s highest wicket taker of the tournament most times

Malinga is the only bowler to be a team’s highest wicket-taker in four seasons. It is to be noted that he has played only five of the seven seasons. He made his IPL debut in 2009, and since then, 2010 has been the only season he wasn’t MI’s highest wicket taker.

Only four more bowlers have done it in three seasons: Ashish Nehra, RP, Mishra and Narine. Nehra and Mishra did it in three seasons for three different teams. Nehra did for MI in 2008, DD in 2009 and Pune Warriors India (PWI) in 2012. Amit Mishra did it for DD in 2010, DC in 2011 and SRH in 2013. RP did for DC in 2008 and 2009 and for Kochi Tuskers Kerala (KTK) in 2011.

Footnote Trivia:

In the seven seasons, only in the first two seasons the Purple Cap recipient came from the champion side. The scenario is worse for the Orange Cap winners: in none of the first six seasons has the Orange Cap winner come from an IPL winning side. Only in the last season did Robin Uthappa win the Orange Cap and KKR win the cup.

(Bharath Seervi is a cricket statistician who is obsessed with digging numbers, facts and records related to the game. An active member of Society of Cricket Statisticians of India, he blogs at www.cricketseervistats.blogspot.com. He can be followed on Twitter at @SeerviBharath and on Facebook here)