The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 mega auction concluded with Rs 639.15 crore being spent, scripting a new recording in the event’s history. While the franchises managed to cover most bases in the auction, there do remain cases of hits and misses. Assembling a squad is one thing and getting them to perform in unison is another. Though only the start of the new season would suggest which teams are the strongest and which aren’t, some bit of analysis can be made by looking at the teams on paper.
While all 10 teams have around 20 players in their squad each, only 11 of them, excluding the Impact Substitute, can make the team sheet on a given matchday. Injuries and form issues will also be a part of the team selection. But, on paper, here’s a look at the strongest XIs for each team, as well as their RTM options.
Strongest Playing XIs and Impact Player Choices of all 10 franchises in IPL 2025:
Chennai Super Kings: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Devon Conway, Rahul Tripathi, Shivam Dube, Rachin Ravindra/Sam Curran, MS Dhoni (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Matheesha Pathirana, Khaleel Ahmed, Noor Ahmad
Impact: Deepak Hooda/Anshul Kamboj
Kolkata Knight Riders: Quinton de Kock, Sunil Narine, Angkrish Raghuvanshi/Ajinkya Rahane, Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakravarthy, Anrich Nortje
Impact: Manish Pandey/Mayank Markande
Lucknow Super Giants: Mitchell Marsh, Rishabh Pant (wk), Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran, Ayush Badoni, David Miller, Abdul Samad, Avesh Khan, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohsin Khan, Mayank Yadav
Impact: Shahbaz Ahmed/Akash Deep
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma, Will Jacks, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya (c), Naman Dhir, Robin Minz (wk), Deepak Chahar, Allah Ghazanfar, Jasprit Bumrah, Trent Boult
Impact: Karn Sharma/Arjun Tendulkar
Delhi Capitals: Jake Fraser-McGurk/Faf du Plessis, KL Rahul (wk), Abishek Porel, Harry Brook, Tristan Stubbs, Ashutosh Sharma, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Mitchell Starc, T Natarajan, Mukesh Kumar
Impact: Sameer Rizvi/Mohit Sharma
Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Phil Salt (wk), Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Krunal Pandya, Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma, Tim David, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yash Dayal, Josh Hazlewood, Swapnil Singh
Impact: Suyash Sharma /Devdutt Padikkal
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan (wk), Heinrich Klaasen, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Abhinav Manohar, Pat Cummins, Harshal Patel, Adam Zampa, Simarjeet Singh, Mohammed Shami
Impact: Atharva Taide
Gujarat Titans: Jos Buttler (wk), Shubman Gill (c), Sai Sudharsan, Shahrukh Khan, Sherfane Rutherford/Glenn Phillips, Washington Sundar, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Kagiso Rabada, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna
Impact: Mahipal Lomror/Ishant Sharma
Punjab Kings: Prabhsimran Singh (wk), Marcus Stoinis, Shreyas Iyer, Glenn Maxwell, Nehal Wadhera, Shashank Singh, Marco Jansen, Harpreet Brar, Arshdeep Singh, Lockie Ferguson, Yuzvendra Chahal
Impact: Vyshak Vijakumar/Vishnu Vinod
Rajasthan Royals: Sanju Samson (c/wk), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Nitish Rana, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Shimron Hetmyer, Wanindu Hasaranga, Maheesh Theekshana/Fazalhaq Farooqi, Jofra Archer, Sandeep Sharma, Tushar Deshpande
Impact: Shubham Dubey/Akash Madhwal
