IPL 2025: Power Rankings - Episode 1
Remember, we are looking beyond just the points table.
It is way too soon to do a power ranking. But when we thought about it, some interesting things had happened already. For instance, most of the teams fancied pre-tournament have started quite poorly. Also, some of the worst teams on paper have to be upgraded because part of their lineups are working better than we thought.
This is the first episode of the power rankings. Remember, we are looking beyond just the points table.
RCB
RCB have gone all in with two experienced quicks in Josh Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar Kumar. That’s five overs sorted up top. Hazlewood bowled 2 in the first six overs, and 2 in the final four in both the games – so his role seems to be pretty clear. Yash Dayal bowled one in the powerplay and two in the middle when both Hoff and Bhuvi played.
Phil Salt is a brilliant acquisition. Faf du Plessis did a great job for them from 2022-24, but Salt is an even higher intent batter. He got them away with two brilliant starts in both games, and also took down Varun Chakaravarthy and R Ashwin in the powerplay.
Despite missing Bhuvi against KKR and Kohli struggling with his timing versus CSK, they won by 22 balls to spare and 50 runs. The margin of the win in the second game was that much after some boundary-hitting from Dhoni once the RRR was above 36. It speaks volumes that they have managed to dominate these two games despite not being at their best.
PBKS
Punjab have only played one game so far, but they posted a massive first-innings total versus GT in Ahmedabad. A big reason for that was Priyansh Arya, who scored 47 off 23 on his debut. He took down Siraj and Arshad Khan in the powerplay.
But the bigger story was their new captain Shreyas Iyer, who decided that anchoring isn’t for cool dudes like him. It was his fourth half-century at a strike rate of more than 200. He smashed both pace and spin, and particularly countered the short and hard lengths really well against the quicks – scoring 35 off 14 vs deliveries pitched at >8 metres.
A really fun bit about their win was certainly Vyshak Vijaykumar’s bowling. He was brought in as an impact sub, and he bowled the 15th, 17th and 19th overs. GT needed 75 runs in 6 overs with 8 wickets in hand, and they had scored 87 in the six overs prior to that. He conceded just 10 in the first 2, and 18 when 45 runs were needed in 2 overs. He basically bowled wide full tosses and yorkers to restrict the flow of runs – even if that meant he gave away a few wides in the process.
DC
Faf may be 40, but he is still one of the best powerplay batters in the league. So DC have gone with him and McGurk at the top, Porel at 3 and KL Rahul at 4. This is an interesting move, because we’ve just not seen KL bat quick at the top of the order for a long time in the IPL. Will batting in the middle order bring out the best in his T20 game like it has in ODIs? We’ll have to wait and watch, but he did get a quick-fire 15 off 5 in his debut for Delhi.
Delhi are 2-0 after the end of their Vizag leg, but they could have very well been 1-1 if not for a one wicket win against LSG. They were down and out, and it took a special performance from Ashutosh Sharma and Vipraj Nigam to get them over the line. The next game was a dominant victory against SRH. Starc takes out the SRH top-order in the following game. They chase it down with ease, despite Fraser-McGurk scoring 38 off 32.
GT
GT is another team that is quite reliant on their top three batters scoring a bulk of the runs. They’ve gone with Gill and Sudharsan opening, with Buttler at three. There’s some merit to it – Buttler hasn’t exactly been a powerplay basher in the IPL in recent years (SR of 133 at an average of 38 in the first six overs in IPL 2022-24), and he’s recently taken up the number three role for England as well. Gill is batting with high intent, and Sudharsan was their top run-getter in both games as well. But they might consider moving Buttler to open and telling him to bat with freedom.
They’ve started with Rutherford, but they also have the option of Glenn Phillips if needed. A rogue move could be playing both, benching Rabada and going with an all Indian pace attack. This brings us to our next point – they have a lot of variety in their bowling options. Siraj is their main Indian quick, and they have Prasidh, Ishant and left-arm pacer Arshad Khan. Rabada and Coetzee.
Their spin is also sorted with Rashid Khan and Sai Kishore. Plus, they have Sundar on the bench as well.
However, Rashid doesn’t seem to be at the level we have seen.
MI
Death, taxes and MI scouting a special talent in an IPL season. This time, two of their signings – left-arm wrist-spinner Vignesh Puthur and left-arm quick Ashwani Kumar – have already made an impact. Ashwani got Rahane in the powerplay, and then took the wickets of Rinku, Pandey and Russell, getting the latter two clean bowled. So when Bumrah comes back in, on paper their bowling unit will have almost all bases covered.
But Rohit’s form has been a cause for concern yet again. He’s not the captain anymore, but dropping a star player of his talent is never easy. But the last time he had a great IPL season was ages ago, though he wasn’t that bad last year.
Just a quick note on Hardik’s innings the other day. If we are going to see this “42-year-old, past his prime Dhoni” version of him, it really reduces their firepower big time. What bothered me more than the eventual score was the intent. He’s done well with the ball though, bowling a few off-cutters.
LSG
LSG are 1-1 after two away games, but they could very well have been 2-0 if Pant didn’t miss a stumping in the final over of the innings. And this is after the fact that Mayank Yadav and Mohsin Khan were unavailable. Of course, Shardul Thakur did a Shardul Thakur thing. He was signed as a replacement for Mohsin after he was all set to play for Essex, and he now has six wickets in as many overs at an economy rate of just under nine.
Lucknow now have two googly-bowling wrist-spin options – Ravi Bishnoi and Digvijay Rathi. Digvesh got the wickets of Axar and Vipraj in the first game, and then dismissed Aniket Verma in the game they won. Bishnoi has three wickets too, but at an economy of 11.9 vs 8.9 for Digvesh. Prince Yadav rattled the timber to dismiss Head and went for just 29 in four overs – bowling four overs on the trot from over 8 to 14.
Pooran has had an outstanding start to the season, and Marsh has quite great as well. But they’re the only two batters who have scored big runs so far. Should Pant open the batting with Marsh, with Pooran at three and Markram in the middle order?
CSK
Ruturaj Gaikwad has scored 116 runs at a strike rate of 157, while Rachin Ravindra has 106 at 133. The rest of the batters combined have scored 81 runs in nine innings. You could argue that Rachin got a little stuck versus RCB, while Gaikwad also didn’t maximize the powerplay in the chase against RR. But the other batters just haven’t stepped up in the first three games.
There is a similar issue when it comes to spin. Noor Ahmad has been outstanding, picking up 9/82 in 12 overs. Ashwin’s at 3/99 in 10, while Jadeja has one wicket in 8 overs and has conceded 68 runs. You would expect the other two to be more frugal with the ball than they have been. Khaleel and Pathirana have done well.
Of course, Noor and Pathirana are locks in the 12. Rachin has also been one of their two consistent batters, plus is also a bowling option – so he’s also pretty much in. Sam Curran made 12 runs and conceded 47 runs in 4 overs in the two games he played. Jamie Overton replaced him, and he went for 30 runs in 2 overs vs RR and made 11* off 4 balls.
Should CSK shore up their batting and include Devon Conway at the top? It might mean they wouldn’t always score as quickly as some of the other teams, but they really need more runs from their frontline batters at this point. In that case, Anshul Kamboj could be included as a bowling option.
SRH
Travis Head now has 136 runs at a strike rate of 192 in the tournament. His ability to just keep getting consistent starts at this pace makes him incredibly hard to plan for. Essentially, you want to bowl good length at the stumps to him, but if you overpitch a bit or go slightly shorter, he’ll again smash the ball away.
SRH started the tournament with such a bang against RR that it made everyone wonder if they’d really put on the first 300 in IPL history against LSG’s inexperienced bowling lineup. They ended up just 110 short. In the next game vs Delhi, Starc did what he does when he’s at his best – got early wickets.
But they had a positive takeaway with the bat in both their losses – Aniket Verma. The Madhya Pradesh cricketer scored 36 off 13 and 74 off 41, hitting 11 sixes and five fours. He has struck at nearly 238 against spin in three matches so far.
They have a bunch of strike bowling options like Harshal Patel, Mohammed Shami and Adam Zampa. Yet, they’ve only taken 14 wickets in three matches despite conceding 10.9 runs per over. They’ll have to hope that their wicket-taking reverts to the mean, otherwise their batters might have a lot of work to do if this continues in the season.
KKR
KKR’s biggest issue so far has perhaps been their powerplay bowling. Spencer Johnson, Vaibhav Arora and Harshit Rana have gone for runs and not picked up too many wickets in this period of the game. Kolkata also didn’t post great first-innings totals, losing both times. They were in a great situation against RCB, but collapsed. Against MI though, they weren’t really in the game at any point.
Narine couldn’t buy a run after the last IPL. He made some runs in the first game, but went out for a duck vs MI. With no Salt in the PP and Shreyas vs spin, their batting has clearly lost two major weapons that played a big role in their title-winning run last season. So if Narine doesn’t turn up with the bat, that’s another player who was incredibly crucial in 2024. Quinton de Kock is of course a very talented batter, but he’s not as quick in the first six overs as Salt.
RR
Cricket’s a funny old game when the guy who conceded 76 runs in 4 overs ended up bowling the first maiden of the tournament, but then also didn’t bowl out versus CSK. He also bowled a really good over to Moeen Ali, but then went for plenty of runs after that. How he goes will have a massive impact on RR’s tournament.
Theekshana took two wickets, but went for more than 50 runs in the runfest vs SRH at Hyderabad. He hasn’t picked up a wicket in the two games in Guwahati, though he has conceded less than 8 runs per over. He bowled three overs in the middle, and one at the death vs CSK. This was different from the first two games, where he bowled five in the powerplay, two in the middle and once at the death.
Yashasvi Jaiswal hasn’t made any runs so far, but I personally wouldn’t be too worried about him. Nitish Rana doing what he did against Ashwin is exactly what they would want (maybe another 3-4 times) versus spin in the upcoming games. Sanju Samson and Dhruv Jurel have a few runs under their belt, and Parag has gotten a couple of starts as well.
So the way too early power rankings list is:
RCB
PK
DC
GT
MI
LSG
CSK
SRH
KKR
RR
RCB with two away wins excites me. I am willing to be embarrassed by Punjab, just like their players are often by their past management. I have Mumbai higher because their two losses were away, and I expect them to be better if we see Bumrah. But they might also have the biggest fall next week. LSG could have won two in a row, but I still have grave concerns and this might be as high as they get all year. CSK, SRH and KKR, you could throw them up in the air and see how they land. My thoughts are that Chennai wickets should spin more later in the year, SRH will make some massive totals. But I do not know how I feel about KKR, I had them ranked fifth pre-season, that is still chaseable I suppose. And I have Rajasthan last, which seems unfair, but there are no teams without a win, so it’s actually fairly jumbled up from Punjab on down. There could be big movers here in either direction.
That is it, I am sure you will agree with every word here, as always.