The wait for the much-awaited Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 ended on March 31 as the 16th edition of the tournament began with Chennai Super Kings (CSK) facing Gujarat Titans (GT). The league is all set to witness more than 70 matches and will last for almost the next two months.
The return of the home-and-away format to the IPL has furthermore increased the enthusiasm among fans, and as a result, they are following the 2023 season of the league in huge numbers. Each team will play seven matches at an away venue and seven matches on their home soil. The restoration of the format will also help the batters and has increased the possibility of run fests in the tournament, as the host team will certainly have an advantage over the visiting side.
With all the fans busy making predictions for who will finish as the leading run scorer in IPL 2023, former Indian opening batter Virender Sehwag also shared his top picks for the ‘Orange Cap’, which is awarded to the highest run scorer in the season.
Sehwag named CSK’ Ruturaj Gaikwad his top-most choice and chose Lucknow Super Giants’ skipper KL Rahul as his second pick. Meanwhile, the third and fourth spot in Sehwag’s list was given to two of the most loved batting stars from India, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. However, what surprised the cricket enthusiasts most was the 44-year-old cricketer not picking last year’s leading run scorer Jost Buttler and the world’s no.1 ranked T20I batter, Suryakumar Yadav.
“Ruturaj Gaikwad No. 1, KL Rahul No. 2, teesre par aap toss kar sakte ho, Kohli ho sakte hai, Rohit Sharma ho sakte hai,” said Sehwag during an interaction with Star Sports.
Notably, the top three picks of Sehwag have all won Orange Caps during their career except his fourth choice of Indian skipper Rohit. While Virat finished as the top run scorer in the 2016 edition, amassing a record 973 runs, Rahul and Ruturaj finished at the top in 2020 and 2021.
