Worst Playing XI of IPL 2025

Worst Playing XI of IPL 2025

After the exciting action that lasted over two months, the 18th edition of the Indian Premier League finally finished with the Royal Challengers Bengaluru becoming the IPL champions for the first time, beating Punjab Kings in the finals. This season witnessed exceptional performances from various players, especially many young and uncapped players who performed well. We also saw Sai Sudarshan, who has yet to debut for India, and Prasidh Krishna, an Indian pacer, winning the Orange Cap and Purple Cap this season. Several players, known as big players, attracted huge bids in the auction and remained in the limelight throughout the year, but did not perform this season. In this article, we discuss those players and will create the worst playing eleven of the season, including the players who were heavily disappointed in the IPL 2025

This is the playing XI that can be regarded as the worst of the season.

Top Order
In this unique worst playing XI of the IPL 2025, in the top order we have Rachin Ravindra, the star New Zealand batter, who was coming off phenomenal form before the season but has disappointed in the season, scoring just in the matches played. In this XI, we paired him with Ishan Kishan, who also couldn't perform well. He started the season with a century, but in the remaining matches, he couldn't score runs. At number three, we have Rishabh Pant, whom you also made the captain of the team. Despite attracting a bid of 27 crore in the auction and becoming the most expensive player in history, Rishabh could not justify his price tag and played sub-average cricket this season, except for the last match in which he scored a century. 

Middle Order
In the middle order, we have Venkatesh Iyer from Kolkata Knight Riders, who attracted big bids from both KKR and RCB in the auction, and was finally taken by KKR for 23 crore. However, he couldn't perform in the season and was later even dropped from the playing XI in the final part of the group stage. The next player we have is Glenn Maxwell, who performs well in international cricket, but has only had a few seasons where he excelled in the IPL, and the trend continued this season too. In the playing XI, at the number 6 and 7 positions, we have KKR’s Rinku Singh and CSK’s MS Dhoni. While Rinku was expected to perform well and finish the innings for KKR, he couldn't deliver for KKR in the season. Meanwhile, Dhoni, who is likely playing in his last or second last season, scored a few runs, hitting some sixes, but we can't consider it a meaningful contribution, given that it wasn't enough for the team's victory.

Bowling

In the bowling department of this worst playing eleven, we have Mohammad Shami and Deepak Chahar as the pacers, while in the spin department, we have Rashid Khan, who is regarded as the best spinner of these times, along with Ravi Chandran Ashwin, who attracted a big bid from CSK in the auction but couldn't perform. This is the worst season for Rashid Khan in years, where he can't even take 10 wickets in the whole season, registering this as his worst season since his debut. Meanwhile, Mohammed Shami, Deepak Chahar, and R. Ashwin, who all attracted big bids, also couldn't perform well.

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