What Went Wrong for RR in IPL 2025?

IPL 2025 has been a rollercoaster ride, and if you support the Rajasthan Royals, you’re probably still trying to process the entire exercise. A team that showed so much initial promise and potential shifted to a side that attracted all the wrong kind of headlines this season. The squad looked like a T20 dream on paper: young, aggressive, and balanced. But as the season revealed, it had many deep cracks. Now that we have a forgettable MI game in the books that ended a forgettable campaign, it’s time we deconstructed how it all went wrong for the Royals.

Too Much Youth, Too Little Experience

Let’s look past the lineup to the batting. Rajasthan loaded up on youth and rolled the dice on Indian power, with only Sanju Samson being experienced. This in itself sounds great in theory – developing a new crop of exciting hitters; however, when push came to shove, they didn’t have anyone experienced like Jos Buttler to anchor. Shimron Hetmyer, the lone overseas bat retained, was pushed down the order and did not deliver what was expected of him.

It was a classic T20 circus, with players smashing runs on good days and a complete collapse when the pressure was on. Without an experienced head in the top order, the younger players often lost their way – and we have seen this time and time again in IPL play – raw talent needs experience around it. But the Royals assembled a team that felt much more like an India A experiment than they did a contender for the title.

Also read:- Yashasvi Jaiswal Is Only 23, But He’s Already Batting Like a Senior Pro in IPL 2025

A Lopsided Auction Strategy

The decisions made by RR at the auction table this year baffled many. They’ll now be paying Dhruv Jurel ₹14 crore and Hetmyer ₹11 crore—a whopping ₹25 crore for two players who provided them with hardly any match-winning returns! That could have snagged them a proper world-class overseas pacer or an established finisher. Instead, they are left searching for balance!

Then comes the interesting Vaibhav Suryavanshi—an exciting fresh talent, to be sure—but signing him for ₹11 crore raised more than a few alarm bells. I mean, with that money, they could’ve landed a quality domestic pacer or at least a decent all-rounder, which the Royals were lacking. While every other team was efficiently building their bowling core, RR’s investment approach was reactive instead of proactive. Sure, their retention core said, ” We back our batters,” but did they back them in?

Bowling Goes From Firepower to Fizzle

Let’s face it—the Royals’ bowling attack this season did not show up. Yes, they had a few big names like Trent Boult, Yuzvendra Chahal, and Ravichandran Ashwin, but their overall performance was downright lousy. Sandeep Sharma was the only one who tried to hold the fort, and even Riyan Parag was chipping in with a few overs, but when your sixth bowling option is a slow part-timer, you know something is not right.

The cherry on top had to be their priciest bowling selection, Jofra Archer, having at best a mediocre season. Sure, he appeared to emerge into the tournament, but by that point, the damage had already been done. RR had no trustworthy death bowler, no game-changing middle overs bowler, and their over-reliance on washed-up or out-of-form stars was glaring. The overall realization was that the team was neither deep nor flexible—both critically important in the IPL’s fast-paced format.

Moving into the next cycle, RR must reflect on whether talent can create a winning team. Or do you need a combination of experience, auction strategy, and clear roles to make a legitimate mark in the league? Hopefully, they will take something from the royal fuss of this season, as the fans deserve better.