Here are the best and worst captains of IPL 2025
The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 has been wrapped with Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) finally getting their hands on that trophy, ending a wait of 18 years at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
Rajat Patidar, fully backed by all in the management and the squad, guided them to glory in his first season as RCB’s captain and has been rightly hailed by everyone.
An influential captaincy model can make or break a dressing room and in return a team’s fate in a competition that is as long as the IPL. However, it has its own challenges of having a short time frame to earn the respect of the dressing room. Once that is done, there is the crucial aspect of inspiring every single player, whether benched or playing to give it their all.
Even if the first two steps are successful, there’s the leader’s instinct and game-reading skills on the pitch to make the right decision at the right time, i.e., bowling changes, fielding changes, batting line-up shuffling and the works. We rate every IPL 2025 captain (five or more matches) has fared for their respective franchises.
In what can be called a morose season for Rajasthan Royals, not having Sanju Samson available for the crucial phases of the season meant the big burden was on the young shoulders of Riya Parag. While his form as a batter was up and down, his leadership abilities clearly lacked proactiveness. The worst part for RR this season was their repeated self-sabotages of chases when the target was within grasp.
Out of the five of those failed close chases, Parag was at the helm for three. There needs to be another senior figure for the back-up captain’s role for the 23-year-old to learn from even if Sanju Samson isn’t available.
Pretty unfortunate season for the keeper-batter who guided the team to the final three seasons with his inspirational batting and leadership. He began the season with three matches as a pure batter and then suffered a serious side muscle tear while attempting a shot. Even if he was not on the pitch, Samson was in the dressing room while recovering.
ALSO READ:
This should’ve presented him with multiple moments to breathe confidence into his deflated teammates, but there were too many things wrong for Samson to fix within few weeks. Besides few bright batting performances, a complete dud season for Samson.
Gaikwad was coming off a poor Ranji Trophy season with Maharashtra with just one hundred from five innings after recovering from an injury-stricken period. The first match against Mumbai Indians was good, but it was a freefall from there. He pushed himself to No.3 while constantly tinkering with the opening combination for five straight matches, as CSK collected one unwanted record after the other. Then came the elbow injury which him put of action for the season. The only silver lining is his replacement Ayush Mhatre excelling in the limited chances.
The retirement talk and the vociferous celebrations of his woeful batting irrespective of the team’s results were aspects not in Dhoni’s control, but he had to do something when he was handed the reins for the third time. For nine matches, CSK’s performances were the poorest they can ever be. Dhoni, at 43, doesn’t look interested in leading the team and seemed to have taken it up only as an obligation.
By head coach Stephen Fleming’s own admission, Dhoni can’t bat for 10 overs which should be enough why the morale was so low throughout the season. His unbeaten 26 not out in the win against Lucknow Super Giants and their massive 83-run win against Gujarat Titans in the final league game takes Dhoni a point above the other three.
Kolkata Knight Riders went above and beyond splurging in the November auction to retain their ‘core’ but let their biggest asset in Shreyas Iyer go into the auction. Even though their line-up looked more or less the same as their trophy-winning side from last year and Rahane being a capable, proven captain, there was evident lethargy within the squad.
Their performances were just fine without the grit from the last season. Rahane did well for his part by scoring 390 runs from 13 matches including three fifties and was the highest run-scorer for the team which was the 19th highest among all batters. Their dominance was also visible in a couple of matches which is why Rahane ranks slight higher than the others.
No other captain has been derided as much as Rishabh Pant through the course of the season for his horror show with the bat. He scored one fifty and one hundred, which constituted more than 70 per cent of the season tally of 269 runs. However, Pant’s leadership deserves some praise for inspiring the team with a glut of injuries in the all-Indian pace department in the initial phase. Despite looking unflattering on paper, Pant led LSG to six wins through the prowess of their top order. He had the self-awareness to walk down the order in games by sending the in-form batters higher.
Sunrisers Hyderabad were the pre-season favorites, touted to be the first team capable of breaking the 300-run deadlock in T20s. They came close with a total of 286/6 against a hapless RR bowling unit, but staying adamant with their high-risk, high reward style made them a predictable side. Their form tailed off quickly and before anyone could guess, they were out of the playoffs race. However, when their napalm-loaded batting style worked, they left teams dizzy and someone like Shreyas Iyer chuckling in disbelief after they chased 246 with nine balls remaining. Cummins is still a capable leader and SRH are still a dangerous side with few personnel changes for the next season.
Yes, we get it. The younger Pandya should’ve been higher up this list, but there’s a big reason why he is on par with the captain who finished sixth in the table. Pandya’s captaincy was inspirational in Mumbai Indians turning the season around after losing four of their first five games to win six matches in a row. He bowled his heart out, cleared the ropes with disdain and fought hard against the tide. But once MI almost sealed the playoffs spot, he let go of control in key moments, two times against Punjab Kings which saw them finish fourth and then eliminated.
His repeated insistence to keep Mitchell Santner away from the ball, his poor fielding changes and going against a settled bowling line-up for key games, let the team down. There also seems to be friction between head coach Mahela Jayawardene and the senior players. The likes of Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah and Pandya himself were left exasperated on the sidelines on many occasions due to the constant barrage of instructions coming from the dug-out. If Pandya’s much-talked takeover has to prove fruitful, there needs to be a change in MI’s think tank next season.
The switch from Rishabh Pant to Axar Patel was expected at Delhi Capitals and they looked revitalised with four wins in a row to start the campaign. Their bowlers were fired up, their batters were fired up and Axar looked fully prepared…until the MI game. They botched a chase that was supposed to be successful and things went horribly wrong.
Suddenly, they were alternating between a win and a loss with mediocre batting performances from the very players who looked unbeatable until then. Even against an out-of-form SRH bowling unit on a batting haven like Hyderabad, they were restricted to 133/7 in 20 overs. A break to their poor form through the league’s suspension didn’t do much good as Axar got ill, missed the most crucial matches that could’ve put them in the playoffs. It was an implosion caused by a clear lack of playing identity in which the captain plays a big role and Axar couldn’t fulfill that.
Gujarat Titans were the toast of the town for at least three-quarters of the season. Their pacers were firing on all cylinders, the opening pair of Shubman Gill and Sai Sudharsan were nearly inseparable while Jos Buttler, Shrefane Rutherford made sure the innings were wrapped up with no fuss. Gill himself was ferocious with his captaincy, always making the right choices with his fielders, bringing in his strike bowlers at the right time and even arguing with the umpires to get his way.
But the high intensity wasn’t sustainable and everyone knew it. When the top four failed, there were no rescue acts, when the pacers and Sai Kishore faltered there were no wicket-takers and head coach Ashish Nehra always barking instructions into Gill’s ear made it look like a team being compulsive about attacking. The coil snapped right at the end and Gill looked clueless against CSK when they scored 200-plus and in the Eliminator when MI batters were piling runs with ease. But there has been enough proof to believe that Gill is the future of GT as an individual performer and a captain.
When Phil Salt failed, Virat Kohli performed. When they both struggled, Rajat Patidar stepped up, Krunal Pandya stepped up, Romario Shepherd stepped up, Tim David stepped up. When Josh Hazlewood had a bad day, Bhuvneshwar Kumar got the wickets, Suyash Sharma got them or Krunal got them. There was the One For All – All For One mentality within the team.
Even when Rajat Patidar had to sit on the bench as a pure batter, his stand-in Jitesh Sharma took control with a massive fifty that helped them to finish in the top two. Patidar, despite being individually gifted players, put himself second and fostered an environment that made sure the team never lost sight of the title. Even in the final, when the batters struggled, their bowlers were up to the task.
The magnitude of Shreyas Iyer’s achievements with Punjab Kings in his first season as their captain is unmissable. Before he arrived on the back of a title-winning season with KKR, PBKS were without a playoffs appearance for 11 years. They were brilliant in some places, but the sum was not greater than the parts. Shreyas along with head coach Ricky Ponting changed that notion with their leadership style that restored their fans’ faith in the team. They were a strong team until No. 6 and even if some failed, one or two players stepped up.
Shreyas’ locked-in vision of reaching the final and lifting the trophy were evident in the team talks as he told his team they had ‘achieved nothing’ after a top-placed finish in the points table. His ice-cold determination in the Qualifier 2 against MI after a failure in the Qualifier 1 was a sight to behold. Any team would want a captain like him and despite a few hiccups including the final, Shreyas Iyer is our best captain of IPL 2025.
For more updates, follow CricXtasy on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Telegram, and YouTube.
