Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 Paisa Barbaad Team of Season

Venkatesh Iyer and Rishabh Pant in focus in our Paisa Barbaad Team of the season for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025. 

Money and Entertainment are two of the major factors that drive the biggest T20 league in the world, the Indian Premier League. While teams with budget constraints still spend humongous amounts to buy certain special players, as fans, what we expect is entertainment on the field. The 18th edition of the Indian Premier League, the IPL 2025 was another successful edition where teams spent money, and fans were entertained.

But sometimes, the equation goes out of hand, and while teams spend humongous money on a certain few special players, they not only fail to entertain but also fail to even perform their basic duties, which are scoring runs or taking wickets. We call this category of players as the Paisa Barbaad group of players. There are many players this time that are falling into this category as even after getting a good amount, they fail to deliver.

So, in this article, we take a look at 11 such players, who will be a part of the Paisa Barbaad Team of the Season for IPL 2025. As usual, we will consider players whose teams spent heavy money on them, but the output was way below par. We will ignore those players where money was spent less, and performance was also less. Also, we will keep in mind to select at least 5 bowlers, 1 wicket-keeper, and 7 batting options including all-rounders.

Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 Paisa Barbaad Team of Season

Starting with the openers, it was a difficult choice to make as not only did we see some outstanding performances from the openers, but there were a few laggards too in terms of performances. But keeping the Price to Performance ratio in mind, Jake Fraser-McGurk and Rishabh Pant were the only logical choices. Of course, Rishabh Pant played in the middle-order, but since we didn’t have a better option, Pant felt a more logical choice since he also played as an opener on a few occasions. 

Talking about the price and performance of these two players, Jake Fraser-McGurk was proudly RTMed by the Delhi Capitals team for a whooping 9 Cr. Purely basis his past records, Jake was given that operating leverage by the Delhi Capitals team. But Jake had a horror of a tournament managing 55 runs from 6 innings before getting dropped from the team. Coincidently, the match Fraser-McGurk was dropped, Delhi’s downtime started, and from being Table toppers, they ended up outside Playoffs. 

Coming to Rishabh Pant – the most expensive player in the history of the Indian Premier League saw nothing but Mind taking over his skills. Caught in two minds on most occasions as to attack or defend, Pant never looked comfortable in the tournament, barring that one last match where he actually showed glimpses of what he can actually do. Overall, getting 27 Cr, Pant could only manage 269 runs from 14 innings at a poor strike rate of 133. The stats are skewed only because of the 118 runs in the final Group stage match.

Middle-order and Finishers

Coming to the middle-order, we have the third-most expensive player of IPL 2025, Venkatesh Iyer. While Iyer is definitely to be blamed for his poor performance, the majority of blame should go to the KKR management. Seriously, what was the management thinking when they decided to spend 24 Cr on a player, who can’t guarantee 600-700 runs, is unable to bowl, and is not even your Captaincy candidate? Overall, Venkatesh could only manage 142 runs from 11 innings at a poor average of 21. 

For number 4, we have Venkatesh Iyer’s KKR teammate, Rinku Singh. Another instance where management is to be blamed more given the way KKR have utilized Rinku Singh. Coming in to bat in pressure situations on almost all occasions, the 13 Cr salary Rinku Singh could only manage 206 runs from 13 innings at a below-par average of 29. Seeing these two cases, KKR will have to seriously think of their batting-order in 2026 if they actually want to win the trophy. 

Coming to the finishers, we have David Miller from LSG and Liam Livingstone from RCB. Both were getting a huge salary of 7.5 Cr and 8.75 Cr respectively, but their performance was way below par. While David Miller could only manage 153 runs from 11 innings at a poor average of 30.6, Liam Livingstone was no different with just 87 runs from 9 innings at a poor average of 14.5. 

Bowlers

Coming to the bowling lineup, we start with the two worst spinners of the season, Rashid Khan and Ravichandran Ashwin. Both Rashid and Ashwin got a salary that looked higher than their potential. With a salary of 18 Cr, Rashid Khan had a serious downfall in terms of performance managing just 9 wickets from 15 matches at a poor average of 57.1  Ashwin, with a salary of 9.75 Cr also had similar returns with 7 wickets from 9 innings at a poor average or 40.4. 

Coming to the pacers, we have Matheesha Pathirana from Chennai Super Kings, Mukesh Kumar from Delhi Capitals, and Mohammed Shami from SRH. All three with a huge salary just couldn’t manage to give a decent performance, forget good. Mukesh Kumar could take only 12 wickets from 12 innings at a poor economy rate of 10.3. Whereas Pathirana looked out of sorts with just 12 wickets from 12 innings at a poor ER of 10.1. Similarly, Shami has looked like an ordinary bowler after his injury return. Overall, he managed just 9 wickets from 9 innings at a poor ER of 11.2. 

Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 Paisa Barbaad Team of Season

1. Jake Fraser-McGurk – 9 Cr
2. Rishabh Pant – 27 Cr
3. Venkatesh Iyer – 23.75 Cr
4. Rinku Singh – 13 Cr
5. David Miller – 7.5 Cr
6. Liam Livingstone – 8.75 Cr
7. Ravichandran Ashwin – 9.75 Cr
8. Rashid Khan – 18 Cr 
9. Mukesh Kumar – 8 Cr
10. Mohammed Shami – 10 Cr
11. Matheesha Pathirana – 13 Cr

So, that’s about the Flop or Paisa Barbaad Team of the Season for IPL 2025. Overall, it’s unfortunate to have these names in the worst-performing team of the season with regard to their Price-to-performance ratio. Hopefully, all these quality players come back stronger, and remind everyone of the quality they possess. There is no doubt about their quality as they have performed well in the past. But sometimes Mind takes over your skills, and that leads to performance diversion. 

Thanks for reading! What’s your Paisa Barbaad Team of the season for Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025? Please email your thoughts to business@cricalytics.com

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