IPL Best Bowling Figures: All-Time Records
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished Cricket in the Indian Premier League10 min read
Alzarri Joseph was making his IPL debut. Mumbai Indians had signed him as a replacement, Sunrisers Hyderabad had reached 39 for 2 inside six overs at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, and by the close of the innings Joseph had 6 for 12 from 3.4 overs and the best bowling figures in the competition's history. He bowled David Warner in his second over, then took his last four wickets across two overs at the back end as Hyderabad were dismissed for 96.
It is a record that has stood since April 2019, and the ones behind it are almost as improbable: Sohail Tanvir's 6 for 14 in the competition's first season, from a bowler nobody in India had seen before, and Adam Zampa's 6 for 19 in 2016, his only IPL season of any consequence.
There have been 38 five-wicket hauls in 1,243 Indian Premier League matches — roughly one every 33 matches, or two a season. The reason is structural: no bowler may deliver more than four overs, which caps the opportunity in a way that longer forms of the game do not. The full list below is complete, and it sits alongside the rest of the record archive for cricket in India.
Every five-wicket haul in IPL history
| # | Figures | Bowler | For | Against | Venue | Season |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6/12 (3.4) | Alzarri Joseph | Mumbai Indians | Sunrisers Hyderabad | Rajiv Gandhi Intl Stadium | 2019 |
| 2 | 6/14 (4) | Sohail Tanvir | Rajasthan Royals | Chennai Super Kings | Sawai Mansingh Stadium | 2008 |
| 3 | 6/19 (4) | Adam Zampa | Rising Pune Supergiants | Sunrisers Hyderabad | ACA-VDCA Stadium, Visakhapatnam | 2016 |
| 4 | 5/5 (3.5) | Akash Madhwal | Mumbai Indians | Lucknow Super Giants | MA Chidambaram Stadium | 2023 |
| 5 | 5/5 (3.2) | Anil Kumble | Royal Challengers Bangalore | Rajasthan Royals | Newlands, Cape Town | 2009 |
| 6 | 5/10 (4) | Jasprit Bumrah | Mumbai Indians | Kolkata Knight Riders | DY Patil Stadium | 2022 |
| 7 | 5/10 (2.3) | Mohit Sharma | Gujarat Titans | Mumbai Indians | Narendra Modi Stadium | 2023 |
| 8 | 5/12 (3) | Ishant Sharma | Deccan Chargers | Kochi Tuskers Kerala | Nehru Stadium, Kochi | 2011 |
| 9 | 5/13 (3.4) | Lasith Malinga | Mumbai Indians | Delhi Daredevils | Feroz Shah Kotla | 2011 |
| 10 | 5/14 (4) | Ankit Rajpoot | Kings XI Punjab | Sunrisers Hyderabad | Rajiv Gandhi Intl Stadium | 2018 |
| 11 | 5/14 (4) | Mark Wood | Lucknow Super Giants | Delhi Capitals | Ekana Stadium, Lucknow | 2023 |
| 12 | 5/15 (2) | Andre Russell | Kolkata Knight Riders | Mumbai Indians | MA Chidambaram Stadium | 2021 |
| 13 | 5/16 (4) | Ravindra Jadeja | Chennai Super Kings | Deccan Chargers | ACA-VDCA Stadium | 2012 |
| 14 | 5/16 (4) | James Faulkner | Rajasthan Royals | Sunrisers Hyderabad | Rajiv Gandhi Intl Stadium | 2013 |
| 15 | 5/17 (4) | Andrew Tye | Gujarat Lions | Rising Pune Supergiant | Saurashtra CA Stadium | 2017 |
| 16 | 5/17 (4) | Amit Mishra | Delhi Daredevils | Deccan Chargers | Feroz Shah Kotla | 2008 |
| 17 | 5/18 (4) | Wanindu Hasaranga | Royal Challengers Bangalore | Sunrisers Hyderabad | Wankhede Stadium | 2022 |
| 18 | 5/18 (4) | Sandeep Sharma | Rajasthan Royals | Mumbai Indians | Sawai Mansingh Stadium | 2024 |
| 19 | 5/18 (4) | Harbhajan Singh | Mumbai Indians | Chennai Super Kings | Wankhede Stadium | 2011 |
| 20 | 5/19 (4) | Bhuvneshwar Kumar | Sunrisers Hyderabad | Kings XI Punjab | Rajiv Gandhi Intl Stadium | 2017 |
| 21 | 5/19 (4) | Sunil Narine | Kolkata Knight Riders | Kings XI Punjab | Eden Gardens | 2012 |
| 22 | 5/20 (4) | Varun Chakravarthy | Kolkata Knight Riders | Delhi Capitals | Sheikh Zayed Stadium | 2020 |
| 23 | 5/20 (4) | James Faulkner | Rajasthan Royals | Sunrisers Hyderabad | Sawai Mansingh Stadium | 2013 |
| 24 | 5/21 (4) | Jasprit Bumrah | Mumbai Indians | Royal Challengers Bengaluru | Wankhede Stadium | 2024 |
| 25 | 5/21 (4) | Munaf Patel | Mumbai Indians | Kings XI Punjab | PCA Stadium, Mohali | 2011 |
| 26 | 5/23 (4) | Mohsin Khan | Lucknow Super Giants | Kolkata Knight Riders | Ekana Stadium, Lucknow | 2026 |
| 27 | 5/24 (4) | Lakshmipathy Balaji | Chennai Super Kings | Kings XI Punjab | MA Chidambaram Stadium | 2008 |
| 28 | 5/25 (4) | Umran Malik | Sunrisers Hyderabad | Gujarat Titans | Wankhede Stadium | 2022 |
| 29 | 5/25 (4) | Dimitri Mascarenhas | Kings XI Punjab | Pune Warriors | PCA Stadium, Mohali | 2012 |
| 30 | 5/25 (4) | Jaydev Unadkat | Royal Challengers Bangalore | Delhi Daredevils | Feroz Shah Kotla | 2013 |
| 31 | 5/27 (4) | Harshal Patel | Royal Challengers Bangalore | Mumbai Indians | MA Chidambaram Stadium | 2021 |
| 32 | 5/30 (4) | Jaydev Unadkat | Rising Pune Supergiant | Sunrisers Hyderabad | Rajiv Gandhi Intl Stadium | 2017 |
| 33 | 5/30 (4) | Bhuvneshwar Kumar | Sunrisers Hyderabad | Gujarat Titans | Narendra Modi Stadium | 2023 |
| 34 | 5/30 (3.5) | Yash Thakur | Lucknow Super Giants | Gujarat Titans | Ekana Stadium, Lucknow | 2024 |
| 35 | 5/32 (4) | Arshdeep Singh | Punjab Kings | Rajasthan Royals | Dubai Intl Stadium | 2021 |
| 36 | 5/35 (3.4) | Mitchell Starc | Delhi Capitals | Sunrisers Hyderabad | ACA-VDCA Stadium | 2025 |
| 37 | 5/36 (4) | Hardik Pandya | Mumbai Indians | Lucknow Super Giants | Ekana Stadium, Lucknow | 2025 |
| 38 | 5/40 (4) | Yuzvendra Chahal | Rajasthan Royals | Kolkata Knight Riders | Brabourne Stadium | 2022 |
The two 5 for 5s
Akash Madhwal and Anil Kumble are the only bowlers to take five wickets for five runs in the IPL, and the fourteen years between them make the comparison worth drawing.
Kumble's came in the 2009 season played in South Africa, in the tournament's opening match at Newlands. He bowled 3.2 overs of leg spin, Rajasthan Royals were dismissed for 58 chasing 134, and Royal Challengers Bangalore won by 75 runs. That 58 is still the second-lowest all-out total in IPL history.
Madhwal's came in the 2023 Eliminator at Chepauk, against a Lucknow side chasing 183. Lucknow were bowled out for 101 and Mumbai Indians won by 81 runs. Of the 38 five-wicket hauls listed above, it is the only one taken in a playoff match.
The shortest spells
| Figures | Overs bowled | Bowler | Season |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5/15 | 2.0 | Andre Russell | 2021 |
| 5/10 | 2.3 | Mohit Sharma | 2023 |
| 5/12 | 3.0 | Ishant Sharma | 2011 |
| 5/5 | 3.2 | Anil Kumble | 2009 |
| 6/12 | 3.4 | Alzarri Joseph | 2019 |
| 5/13 | 3.4 | Lasith Malinga | 2011 |
| 5/35 | 3.4 | Mitchell Starc | 2025 |
| 5/5 | 3.5 | Akash Madhwal | 2023 |
Andre Russell's 5 for 15 from two overs is the most compressed spell in IPL history: five wickets in twelve balls at Chepauk, taken across the eighteenth and twentieth overs of a Mumbai innings that ended on 152 all out. Kolkata still lost the match by ten runs. It is also part of the reason Russell heads the best bowling strike rate records, a list otherwise made of frontline seamers.
Best four-wicket hauls
Four-for-nothing spells are cheaper than five-fors and often more decisive, because they usually arrive earlier in an innings.
| Figures | Bowler | For | Against | Season |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4/5 (1 over) | Andre Russell | Kolkata Knight Riders | Gujarat Titans | 2022 |
| 4/6 (2 overs) | Rohit Sharma | Deccan Chargers | Mumbai Indians | 2009 |
| 4/8 | Dwayne Smith | Gujarat Lions | Kolkata Knight Riders | 2016 |
| 4/9 | Samuel Badree | Royal Challengers Bangalore | Mumbai Indians | 2017 |
| 4/9 | Amit Mishra | Deccan Chargers | Kings XI Punjab | 2011 |
| 4/10 | Lungi Ngidi | Chennai Super Kings | Kings XI Punjab | 2018 |
| 4/10 | Ashish Nehra | Chennai Super Kings | Royal Challengers Bangalore | 2015 |
| 4/11 | Shoaib Akhtar | Kolkata Knight Riders | Delhi Daredevils | 2008 |
Russell's 4 for 5 came in a single over — the only one-over four-wicket haul in the competition. Rohit Sharma's 4 for 6 for Deccan Chargers against the franchise he would go on to captain for a decade is a footnote most people have forgotten; he bowled part-time off spin and it is comfortably the best return of his career.
Why the format keeps this list short
Twenty overs, four per bowler, six bowlers minimum in most sides. A bowler has 24 balls and needs five of them to produce dismissals in an innings where the batting side is trying to lose no more than seven wickets. Thirty-eight five-fors in nineteen seasons — two a season — is what that arithmetic produces. Nobody has more than two in a career, and only four bowlers have managed even that, as the most five-wicket hauls records set out.
There is a further consequence. The bowlers on this list are not, in general, the best bowlers in IPL history. Lasith Malinga, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar are here, but so are Ankit Rajpoot, Yash Thakur and Adam Mascarenhas. A five-wicket haul in a four-over format is largely a description of a batting collapse that happened to be shared with one man. For durable quality the numbers that matter are the best bowling averages and the best economy rates.
The venues that keep appearing
Five of the 38 came at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad, more than at any other ground, and every one of the five involved Sunrisers Hyderabad as bowling or batting side. Chepauk, the Wankhede and the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow have four each — remarkable in Lucknow's case, since it only entered the rotation in 2022. Feroz Shah Kotla, the Sawai Mansingh Stadium and the ACA-VDCA Stadium in Visakhapatnam have three apiece.
That distribution says less about the grounds than about sample size, but the Hyderabad cluster is worth noting: the surface there has historically offered enough for the new ball early and enough grip later that a full collapse remains possible in a way it is not at, say, the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, which has not hosted a single five-wicket haul in nineteen seasons.
Sources and method
Bowling figures are computed from the ball-by-ball archive published by Cricsheet (cricsheet.org, ODC-BY 1.0) covering all 1,243 IPL matches from 18 April 2008 to 31 May 2026. A wicket is credited to the bowler for bowled, caught, caught and bowled, lbw, stumped and hit wicket; run-outs, retirements and obstruction are not credited, which is the standard convention.
Runs conceded exclude byes, leg byes and penalty runs but include wides and no-balls. Overs bowled count legal deliveries only, so a spell shown as 3.4 overs is 22 legal balls. Every entry above is a completed innings return from a single match; the list is ordered by wickets, then by fewest runs conceded, which is how bowling figures are conventionally ranked.
The list of five-wicket hauls is complete to the stated date rather than a selection. Franchise names are those in use at the time, so Rising Pune Supergiants and Rising Pune Supergiant are the same club in its two seasons, and Punjab appear as Kings XI Punjab before 2021. Venue names are abbreviated in the tables for width and given in full in the prose where the ground matters. Match-level context — the totals, the margins and the stage of the tournament — was read from the same archive.