Flop playing XI of IPL 2025 ft. Rishabh Pant, Glenn Maxwell

With the 2025 Indian Premier League now concluded, all that remains is to judge players based on their performances and the way in which they showed up for their respective franchises.

This, in turn, leads us towards making a list of players who flopped this season and disappointed their supporters despite having big price tags. These players may find it hard to be retained by their teams next season.

Quite naturally, neither Royal Challengers Bengaluru nor Punjab Kings have any players in this list. While the former earned their maiden IPL title after 18 years of despair, one must spare a thought for the latter too, who came so close to doing the same on Tuesday, June 3.

In this piece, we take a look at the flop playing XI of this IPL:

Top order batters: Jake Fraser-McGurk, Rachin Ravindra, Ishan Kishan

Jake Fraser-McGurk and Rachin Ravindra will open the innings for this team. They failed to live up to their billing this season and flattered to deceive. Fraser-McGurk, who was retained by Delhi Capitals for INR 9 crore this season, could only amass 55 runs in six innings before being asked to sit out.

Ravindra, meanwhile, was another big flop. Having already impressed in red-ball cricket, this IPL was supposed to herald his T20-batting skills. However, he could not quite make the most of the opportunities he got at Chennai Super Kings, and ended up bagging just 191 runs in eight innings.

Ishan Kishan of SunRisers Hyderabad will bat at No. 3. He ended with 354 runs, but one must remember that he scored a century in the first game and 94 in the penultimate one. In between, Kishan failed to score runs consistently and left SRH in dire straits. 200 runs came from those two innings of Kishan, and 154 in his remaining 12.

Middle-order batters: Rishabh Pant, Glenn Maxwell, Venkatesh Iyer, Liam Livingstone, Nitish Kumar Reddy

This side has quite a heavy middle-order with Rishabh Pant batting at number four, closely followed by Glenn Maxwell and Venkatesh Iyer at numbers five and six, respectively. Pant was perhaps the biggest flop of this season's IPL, especially after he had been signed by Lucknow Super Giants for a whopping INR 27 crore.

Although he scored a century (118*) in the last game of the season, he could amass only 151 runs in his remaining 13 matches. Eventually, he ended the season with an average of just over 24. He will be the captain and wicketkeeper of this team. Maxwell, meanwhile, could score only 48 runs in seven matches for Punjab Kings this season, and this was disappointing.

Maxwell was, interestingly, released by RCB last season after bagging only 52 runs in 10 matches, and it remains to be seen if PBKS retain him for their next campaign. Liam Livingstone, of RCB, was another big failure, after amassing only 112 runs in 10 matches this season. Nitish Kumar Reddy too flattered to deceive, scoring 182 runs in 13 matches and picking up just two wickets.

Bowlers: Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Mohit Sharma

The bowling attack of this team will be manned by Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, and Mohit Sharma. Ashwin, who was signed by his home franchise Chennai Super Kings for INR 9.75 crore in the auction, had a season to forget and ended up with just seven wickets in nine games.

Shami, picked by SRH for INR 10 crore, disappointed even further, snapping up just six wickets in nine matches, before being left out of the side. The Bengal and India seamer was aiming to use this IPL season to come back from injury and get into some rhythm before the tour of England, but failed to do so.

Although the selectors did not explicitly say so, Shami was left out of the India squad for the aforementioned tour, presumably due to his poor form in this tournament. He bowled with an expensive economy rate of over 11. Mohit Sharma is another player who failed to impress this season; turning out for Delhi Capitals, he could pick up only two wickets in eight matches.

Honourable mention: Rashid Khan

Rashid Khan deserves a mention here, as he too was one of the biggest flops of this season's IPL. However, he could not fit into this team owing to the rule of playing only four overseas players. Khan, turning out for Gujarat Titans, picked up nine wickets in 15 matches, but conceded his runs at an economy of 9.34.