Most expensive flops of IPL 2025

While the 2025 IPL season did witness some memorable performances, there were a fair few big names who did not live up to their reputation.

Franchises forked out in excess of INR 690 crore on players during the IPL 2025 Mega Auction. Now, after the first season of this three-year cycle has concluded, we look at five stars who failed to deliver on their promise and hefty price tags.

#5 Mohammed Shami | INR 10 crore

Mohammed Shami has been a stalwart and one of the most prolific wicket-takers over the last five editions of the IPL. In fact, Shami was the highest wicket-taker in the IPL between 2019 and 2023, picking up a total of 106 wickets in 75 outings at a sensational strike rate of 16.2.

Shami’s dramatic drop-off in IPL 2025 can be attributed in no small part to his new franchise, the SunRisers Hyderabad — last season’s runners-up.

The veteran Indian pacer took just six wickets in nine matches this season with a dismal economy rate of 11.23, finishing as one of the worst frontline pacers of the campaign. Far from his usual sharpness, he leaked runs in the Powerplay and at the death, turning match situations from manageable to messy.

His career IPL numbers — 133 wickets in 119 matches with an economy rate of 8.63 — do not paint the full picture of how woeful this season was, as fitness issues and waning pace appear to be catching up with the 34-year-old.

#4 Jake Fraser-McGurk | INR 9 crore 

Jake Fraser-McGurk was one of the shining lights of last year’s IPL, where he scored 330 runs in just nine innings at a staggering strike rate of 234.04 — the highest in the tournament among all batters who crossed the 100-run mark. 

However, his form dipped massively over the succeeding months, so it was quite a surprise to many when the Delhi Capitals used one of their Right To Match cards to retain his services for INR 9 crore.

Cricket is a great leveller, and both DC and Fraser-McGurk learnt that the hard way this season. The 23-year-old could only muster 55 runs in six innings at a strike rate of 105.76 before being dropped from the starting XI. The young Australian struggled against pace this season, with fast bowlers accounting for five of his six dismissals.

#3 Thangarasu Natarajan | INR 10.75 crore 

After a prolific IPL 2024 campaign with the SunRisers, where his 19 wickets and accurate death bowling proved instrumental in guiding SRH to the final, T Natarajan had to undergo shoulder surgery in August. The Delhi Capitals knew it would be a long recovery, but they were adamant in their pursuit and landed the veteran bowler with a staggering INR 10.75-crore bid.

Ahead of the 2025 IPL season, the National Cricket Academy cleared the left-arm Tamil Nadu pacer for the IPL, but it wasn’t until the called-off Match 58 in Dharamshala that DC decided to bring the 34-year-old into the playing XI. He featured only once more, against the Gujarat Titans in Match 60, where he went for 0/49 in three overs.

It’s fair to say that Natarajan’s move to DC ranks among the worst buys in recent IPL history.

#2 Rishabh Pant | INR 27 crore

The Sanjiv Goenka–led Lucknow Super Giants forked out a whopping INR 27 crore to make Rishabh Pant the most expensive player in IPL history. While it is understandable that they considered him a “3D” player — wicketkeeper, batter, and skipper — his lack of output in the batting department this season gravely affected the other two facets of his play.

Simply put, the LSG skipper failed to deliver with the bat. Although he finished the season with a magnificent century against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru, which made his stats somewhat respectable, it couldn’t make up for the rest of the season. At one point, Pant had scored just 128 runs in 11 matches at a shocking strike rate of 99.22 — the lowest among the 67 batters who had scored a minimum of 100 runs by that point in the season.

Pant registered seven single-digit scores this season, while only producing two substantial knocks (118* off 61 against RCB and 63 off 49 against CSK), both in losing causes. While he did many things right as captain, his sluggish batting performances put enormous pressure on LSG’s top- and middle-order batters and were one of the contributing factors to the team’s reversal of fortunes after a blistering start to the season.

#1 Venkatesh Iyer | INR 23.75 crore 

When the Kolkata Knight Riders shelled out INR 23.75 crore for Venkatesh Iyer at the IPL 2025 Mega Auction, they believed they were securing a game-changer — someone who had proven his worth in previous seasons and could be relied upon to become their next leader.

What they got instead was a liability dressed as a marquee signing. Iyer delivered a paltry return of just 142 runs in 11 outings at a strike rate of 139.22 — and even these numbers were largely inflated by two cameo innings, one of which was a 29-ball 60 against SRH.

More importantly, in key moments, the 30-year-old simply crumbled this season. His lowest point was a torturous knock of 14 runs off 19 balls at Eden Gardens against the Gujarat Titans — his slowest T20 innings ever — that derailed the run chase on the night and left fans fuming. The crowd, the pressure, the price tag, and the added responsibilities all seemed to weigh him down.

From being a reliable power-hitter to looking like a walking wicket, Iyer’s form nosedived this year. His failure to anchor or accelerate innings hurt KKR badly, as they gave away momentum to the opposition time and again throughout the season.