IPL 2025: Predicted playoff teams and SWOT analysis

The 18th season of the IPL starts on March 22 with ten franchises aiming at winning the coveted trophy. The opening match of IPL 2025 is between defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) who remain one of three of the original franchises yet to win the tournament in 17 seasons. 

Having put together a dramatic late run for the playoffs in 2024, which saw the franchise win six games after they lost seven of their first eight, RCB lost the Eliminator match. This year, a few changes to their squad and a new captain in Rajat Patidar have given their fans reason to believe that 2025 could be the year. But, as always with RCB, having quality players on paper does not translate into a title success. 

The other two aforementioned franchises, Delhi Capitals (RC) and Punjab Kings (PBKS) enter this edition with renewed hope after making some robust purchase at the mega IPL auction, but both face a massive hurdle to make it to the playoffs. 

For PBKS, this season is a new start. With a new captain in 2024 IPL champions KKR’s captain Shreyas Iyer and a new coach in Ricky Ponting, the franchise will attempt to erase a decade of not making the playoffs. 

Their owners forked out nearly Rs 27 crore on Iyer, who in the last year has won the IPL, three domestic titles with Mumbai and the ICC Champions Trophy with India. They retained just two players in Prabhsimran Singh and Shashank Singh and at the mega auction, PBKS used their Right to Match card to get back Arshdeep Singh for Rs 18 crore. 

Joining Arshdeep at PBKS are Marco Jansen, Lockie Ferguson, Xavier Bartlett and Yuzvendra Chahal. And in the batting, the Australian trio of Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis and Josh Inglis bring plenty of heft. But the big question is: can Punjab’s Indian players perform consistently? 

For Delhi, it is a new year with a new captain, new coaches, several new players and a new mentor. In 17 years of trying, no DC captain has managed to win the IPL trophy and now with Axar Patel taking over as captain, and with the arrival of KL Rahul from Lucknow Super Giants and Mitchell Starc from KKR, there is hope of DC doing well this year. But losing Rishabh Pant and Harry Brook – who withdrew from personal reasons – could prove massive for DC. I think it is going to be a hurdle for Delhi to make the playoffs given the batting and lack of depth in the spin department after Axar and Kuldeep Yadav. 

Over the next two months, 74 matches will be played across 13 venues and on view will be a roster of international superstars and, potentially, a 13-year-old debutant. That would be Vaibhav Raghuvanshi, the teenaged batting prodigy signed up by Rajasthan Royals (RR) at the mega auction, but unlike 2024 this team looks like laggards in the playoffs race on account of their having offloaded Jos Buttler, Trent Boult, Chahal and Ravichandran Ashwin. I think RR will struggle to make the playoffs, given the lack of overseas power hitters, the absence of quality spinners and some questionable pace options. 

They lost last season’s final to KKR, but Sunrisers Hyderabad made everyone sit up and take notice with their ballistic approach to batting and the brilliant captaincy of winner Pat Cummins. And despite letting go of key personnel in Bhuvneshwar – who was with them since 2014 – and T Natarajan, I am looking at the explosive opening pair of Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma, arguably T20 cricket’s most dangerous middle order hitter in Heinrich Klaasen, the all-round skill of Nitish Reddy, the presence of Cummins and the additions of Mohammed Shami and Harshal Patel an d seeing a playoff team in SRH. 

Gujarat Titans retained five players before the mega auction in and then splurged on acquiring Buttler, Kagiso Rabada, Mohammed Siraj, Washington Sundar, Prasidh Krishna, Glenn Phillips, Gerald Coetzee and Sherfane Rutherford. On paper, the five retained players and these names make for a good-looking squad, and potentially one for the playoffs. But there seems to be a heavy reliance on the top three of Shubman Gill, Sai Sudarshan and Buttler, a dependency on Rashid Khan in terms of spin and some pacers who all too often come undone in T20 cricket. All these factors combined, I don’t see GT making it to the playoffs. 

While KKR retained most of their core group from the past few years, will letting go of Iyer and Starc and their mentor Gautam Gambhir cost them? While the familiar face of Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh and Varun Chakravarthy are around, it is the new recruits on whom much will depend. Ajinkya Rahane is the new KKR captain, and along with him come Quinton de Kock, Anrich Nortje, Spencer Johnson, Moeen Ali and Rovman Powell. I am backing this team to make the playoffs again, and once KKR are there, it will boil down to the massive vault of experience they possess. 

The LSG squad has plenty of talent, but their batting order is somewhat confusing. They only have two specialist openers and a middle order with two players who are not at their best in T20s (Aiden Markram and David Miller) which leaves plenty for new skipper Pant and the retained Nicholas Pooran and Ayush Badoni to do. 

Ravi Bishnoi can win them some matches, but beyond him the spin quotient is a puzzle too, with Shahbaz Ahmed the next most experienced. Lucknow are also struggling with another setback for Mayank Yadav and the lack of bowling from Mitchell Marsh. They could make the playoffs, but for that it will need heaps of consistency. 

Chennai Super Kings welcome back one of their ‘OGs’ in Ashwin, and him teaming up with Ravindra Jadeja and MS Dhoni once again is a big plus for this team. Sam Curran is another value addition, and for a franchise that did not do much shopping at the mega auction, they still have a good squad on paper. The Dhoni factor, Rituraj Gaikwad, the pair of Ashwin and Jadeja and the overseas trio of Curran, Rachin Ravindra and Matheesha Pathirana leads me to back CSK for the playoffs. 

The IPL’s most successful franchise, Mumbai Indians, finished last on the points table in 2024 with just four wins from 14 matches. But this season, with a balanced squad and some new talent, MI enter the league with renewed confidence. That said, they are waiting for Jasprit Bumrah to be passed fit. 

The MI owners retained Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma, thus ensuring a solid core. Then at the mega auction, they bought Trent Boult, Mitchell Santner, Will Jacks, Deepak Chahar and Ryan Rickleton, among others, and now have Mujeed ur Rahman as one of their two injury replacements. Doubts linger, chiefly because of Bumrah’s fitness and a somewhat light lower middle order, but MI are a safe bet for the playoffs provided they don’t fall too far behind at the start of the season. 

So then, here are my predicted four playoff teams: SRH, KKR, CSK and MI.