IPL Most Catches: All-Time Records

MS Dhoni has taken 158 catches in the Indian Premier League. Dinesh Karthik is second on 145, Virat Kohli third on 126 and AB de Villiers fourth on 120. The top two spent almost every one of those matches behind the stumps, which is the first thing to know about a combined catching list: it puts a wicketkeeper's job and a fielder's job in the same column.

Kohli's 126 is therefore the more comparable figure. He has caught more balls in the outfield than anyone in the competition's history, in 282 matches — more appearances than any other player — and he has never kept wicket in one of them. Ravindra Jadeja, on 111 including seven caught and bowled, is the next outfielder.

Catching also matters more now than it did. In 2008, 61 per cent of all IPL wickets were catches. In 2026 the figure was 76.9 per cent, the highest of any season on record, which is what happens when batters attack from the first over and the bowled dismissal becomes rarer than the ball hit straight down a fielder's throat. The figures below cover all 1,243 Indian Premier League matches from 2008 to the 2026 final.

Most catches in IPL history

Catches include those taken behind the stumps and, following scorecard convention, dismissals where the bowler caught his own delivery. Stumpings and run-outs are listed separately for context but are not catches and are not counted in the total.

#	Fielder	Catches	Of which c&b	Matches	Per match	Stumpings	Run-outs
1	MS Dhoni	158	0	277	0.57	47	53
2	Dinesh Karthik	145	0	257	0.56	37	46
3	Virat Kohli	126	0	282	0.45	0	20
4	AB de Villiers	120	0	183	0.66	8	20
5	Ravindra Jadeja	111	7	267	0.42	0	25
6	Suresh Raina	109	3	204	0.53	0	13
7	Kieron Pollard	103	6	189	0.54	0	13
8	Rohit Sharma	102	1	281	0.36	0	11
9	Shikhar Dhawan	100	0	222	0.45	0	2
10	Wriddhiman Saha	93	0	169	0.55	26	20
11	Robin Uthappa	92	0	205	0.45	32	45
11	David Miller	92	0	152	0.61	0	8
13	Rishabh Pant	90	0	139	0.65	24	7
13	Sanju Samson	90	0	190	0.47	19	26
15	Manish Pandey	89	0	180	0.49	0	13
16	Jos Buttler	88	0	138	0.64	4	8
16	David Warner	88	0	184	0.48	0	9
18	Faf du Plessis	86	0	154	0.56	0	5
19	Ajinkya Rahane	85	0	212	0.40	0	9
19	Axar Patel	85	6	177	0.48	0	5
21	KL Rahul	83	0	160	0.52	8	10
22	Dwayne Bravo	80	11	160	0.50	0	14
23	Suryakumar Yadav	77	0	179	0.43	0	2
24	Quinton de Kock	75	0	118	0.64	17	12
24	Hardik Pandya	75	7	162	0.46	0	7
26	Parthiv Patel	69	0	139	0.50	16	26
27	Ishan Kishan	67	0	134	0.50	6	15
28	Naman Ojha	65	0	113	0.58	10	25
29	Ambati Rayudu	64	0	204	0.31	2	14
29	Shreyas Iyer	64	0	147	0.44	0	9
31	Jitesh Sharma	59	0	71	0.83	7	9
31	Deepak Hooda	59	0	125	0.47	0	4
31	Mayank Agarwal	59	0	130	0.45	0	2
34	Shubman Gill	57	0	134	0.43	0	2
35	Krunal Pandya	54	5	158	0.34	0	2
35	Steve Smith	54	0	103	0.52	0	10

The list with the keepers taken out

Every player below has never taken a stumping in the IPL, which is the cleanest available proxy for never having kept wicket in one.

#	Fielder	Catches	Matches	Per match
1	Virat Kohli	126	282	0.45
2	Ravindra Jadeja	111	267	0.42
3	Suresh Raina	109	204	0.53
4	Kieron Pollard	103	189	0.54
5	Rohit Sharma	102	281	0.36
6	Shikhar Dhawan	100	222	0.45
7	David Miller	92	152	0.61
8	Manish Pandey	89	180	0.49
9	David Warner	88	184	0.48
10	Faf du Plessis	86	154	0.56
10	Axar Patel	85	177	0.48
12	Ajinkya Rahane	85	212	0.40
13	Dwayne Bravo	80	160	0.50
14	Suryakumar Yadav	77	179	0.43
15	Hardik Pandya	75	162	0.46
16	Shreyas Iyer	64	147	0.44
17	Deepak Hooda	59	125	0.47
17	Mayank Agarwal	59	130	0.45
19	Shubman Gill	57	134	0.43
20	Steve Smith	54	103	0.52

David Miller's 0.61 catches per match is the highest of any outfielder with 100 or more appearances, which will not surprise anyone who watched him patrol the boundary for Punjab Kings and Gujarat. At the other end, Rohit Sharma's 0.36 across 281 matches is the lowest rate in the top ten and reflects a long stretch of his career spent captaining from a station where the ball rarely arrives.

Catching per match, all fielders

Restricted to 100 or more appearances, so a short career on a wicket-taking side cannot lead. Jitesh Sharma's 0.83 across 71 matches is the highest rate anyone has recorded but sits below the threshold and is listed only in the main table.

#	Fielder	Catches per match	Catches	Matches
1	AB de Villiers	0.66	120	183
2	Rishabh Pant	0.65	90	139
3	Jos Buttler	0.64	88	138
3	Quinton de Kock	0.64	75	118
5	David Miller	0.61	92	152
6	Naman Ojha	0.58	65	113
7	MS Dhoni	0.57	158	277
8	Faf du Plessis	0.56	86	154
8	Dinesh Karthik	0.56	145	257
10	Wriddhiman Saha	0.55	93	169
11	Kieron Pollard	0.54	103	189
12	Suresh Raina	0.53	109	204
13	KL Rahul	0.52	83	160
13	Steve Smith	0.52	54	103
15	Parthiv Patel	0.50	69	139
15	Dwayne Bravo	0.50	80	160
15	Ishan Kishan	0.50	67	134

Catching has become the dominant way out

The share of dismissals that are catches has risen by sixteen percentage points across the competition's life, and the number of catches per innings by roughly one.

Season	Innings	Catches	Per innings	Share of all wickets	Bowled	Run-outs
2008	116	421	3.63	61.0%	131	85
2010	120	410	3.42	56.8%	140	93
2013	152	572	3.76	62.9%	169	79
2016	120	414	3.45	62.2%	111	74
2019	120	486	4.05	71.4%	86	41
2021	120	489	4.08	68.2%	113	46
2023	147	626	4.26	68.3%	145	55
2024	142	644	4.54	72.9%	123	52
2025	146	623	4.27	71.5%	133	37
2026	147	677	4.61	76.9%	114	41

Two things move together in that table. As catches rise, run-outs fall — from 85 in 2008 to 41 in 2026, in a season with 27 per cent more innings. Fewer batters are pushing for singles because fewer batters are looking for singles at all, and the fielding value has migrated from the ring to the boundary rope.

Five catches in a match

It has happened four times in nineteen seasons.

Fielder	Catches	Season	Venue
Kumar Sangakkara	5	2011	Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad
Mohammad Nabi	5	2021	Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi
Daryl Mitchell	5	2024	MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai
Rinku Singh	5	2026	Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow

Four catches in a match has been done 27 times, and three catches 175 times. Two of the four five-catch performances came from a wicketkeeper, which is the split you would expect.

The best single seasons

Fielder	Catches	Season
Jos Buttler	25	2026
Jitesh Sharma	19	2025
AB de Villiers	19	2016
Rishabh Pant	18	2019
Quinton de Kock	18	2020
Naman Ojha	18	2016
Dhruv Jurel	18	2026
Ruturaj Gaikwad	17	2023
Riyan Parag	17	2022
Kumar Sangakkara	17	2011

Jos Buttler's 25 in 2026 is the highest single-season figure on record, and it came in a season where 677 catches were taken across 147 innings — both competition highs. Six of the ten best seasons belong to wicketkeepers, and the four that do not belong to outfielders who happened to be in sides whose bowlers took a lot of wickets.

Observations

• MS Dhoni's 158 catches, 47 stumpings and 53 run-outs add up to 258 dismissals he had a hand in, more than any player in the competition. His run-out total is the highest on record and the one part of his fielding record that gets least attention.
• Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have the two largest appearance totals in IPL history — 282 and 281 — and 24 catches between them separate their careers. Both figures come almost entirely from one franchise apiece, Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Mumbai Indians.
• Only nine players have reached a hundred catches, and four of them are wicketkeepers. Among outfielders the hundred mark has been cleared by six: Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, Suresh Raina, Kieron Pollard, Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan.
• Dwayne Bravo has 11 caught and bowled dismissals, the most of anyone, which is a function of bowling a lot of slower balls into the pitch and standing in the follow-through to accept the leading edge.
• Ambati Rayudu played 204 matches and took 64 catches, a rate of 0.31 that is the lowest of anyone past 200 appearances. Catching opportunity is not distributed evenly across a side, and a batter who fields at cover for a spin-heavy attack in the middle overs will see fewer chances than one at deep midwicket for a seam attack.

Sources and method

Every catch on this page was counted from the ball-by-ball archive of completed IPL matches, taking the fielder credited on each dismissal recorded as caught, plus the bowler on each dismissal recorded as caught and bowled. That is how catches are totted up on a scorecard and how published IPL fielding records are compiled, and the leading totals here agree with those records.

Catches taken by substitute fielders are credited to the substitute, as they are on the scorecard. Stumpings and run-outs appear in the main table for context only; the keeping-specific records live on the wicketkeeper dismissals page and the stumping records. Deliveries bowled in the sixteen super overs the competition has staged are excluded throughout.

"Matches" counts appearances in a named eleven, which is the figure published alongside career records. It slightly overstates fielding opportunity, because a player named in an abandoned or heavily shortened match had little or no chance to catch anything. The per-match rates should be read with that in mind, which is why both rate tables carry a 100-appearance floor.

Season labels follow the calendar year in which the edition was played, so the 2020 tournament staged in the United Arab Emirates is listed as 2020. The archive runs to the 2026 final on 31 May 2026, and nothing here has been extrapolated beyond it.