IPL 2025 Pre-Tournament Benchmark Indian Players Playing 11

March 6, 2025 Adesh Kothari

Virat Kohli, the GOAT in the team in our benchmark Indian players playing 11 for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025.

Every year in the Indian Premier League we see many quality players, especially the Indian players making a mark in the competition. Be it in batting or bowling, new superstars rise every tournament, while the consistent players keep on doing well. With such heavy competition in the tournament, what’s more important is to find out the players who keep on doing well regularly in the tournament.

While doing well in the Indian Premier League should be the highest priority, replicating that form at the International stage is an icing on the cake. The players who do well in both arenas always fall in the Top Tier category, and the best of the lots among the top tiers are called Benchmark players. A benchmark player is someone who excels in the respective category, which is opening department, middle-order, finisher, all-rounder, spinner, and pacer.

In this article, we take a look at the Benchmark Indian players who have done well not only in the Indian Premier League, but mostly also on the International stage with a priority of course being given to the IPL. To calculate the Indian players Benchmark playing 11, we take a look at the best players across each category, and find out the best 11 that can beat any Overseas playing 11 in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025.

IPL 2025 Benchmark Indian Players Playing 11

Starting with the openers, there are many Indian players who have been doing pretty well in the Indian Premier League as openers. Right from Shubman Gill for GT, Abhishek Sharma for SRH, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Sanju Samson for RR, Virat Kohli for RCB, Rohit Sharma for MI, to Ruturaj Gaikwad for CSK. All these openers have been doing exceptionally well in the IPL in the last few years. It’s extremely difficult to select only two openers from this lot as almost all have been doing good with very little differentiation.

But two openers that have done well not only in the IPL, but also somewhat on the International stage, have to be Yashasvi Jaiswal and Virat Kohli. Both openers have done fabulously well in the IPL, having scored in excess of 1000 runs in the last two seasons. Both also complement each other really well. While Yashasvi Jaiswal is an aggressor by nature, Virat Kohli can complement him really well by playing second fiddle.

Coming to the middle-order, we are looking at the World’s best T20 batter, Suryakumar Yadav at 3, India’s best wicket-keeper Rishabh Pant at 4, and India’s solid middle-order batter Rinku Singh at 5. This is a solid batting lineup with all three players bringing unique strengths to the table. While SKY needs no introduction, Rishabh Pant and Rinku are usually good in the middle overs, can play spin well, and look for timely boundaries.

Trio of Finishers

For the finisher all-rounders, look no other than Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, and Ravindra Jadeja. The trio played a similar role in the T20 World Cup 2024, and are also donning a similar role in the Champions Trophy 2025. Needless to say, these are the best three all-rounders in India currently, and while Jadeja has retired for T20I format, he is a valuable asset for his team CSK in the IPL. Similarly, Hardik Pandya and Axar Patel are among the MVPs for their respective team in the IPL.

Finally, for the benchmark Indian bowlers in the competition, we have Jasprit Bumrah and Arshdeep Singh as benchmark pacers, and Varun Chakravarty as the benchmark spinner in the Indian Premier League. This is a fantastic bowling combination, and add to it the three all-rounders, Team India not only get solid batting depth, but also 6 solid bowling options. Fortunately, 5 of these 6 players are also representing the Indian team currently.

IPL 2025 Benchmark Indian Players Playing 11

Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav (c), Rishabh Pant (wk), Rinku Singh, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah.

So, that’s about the benchmark Indian players playing 11 for IPL 2025. Overall, this is a solid batting lineup, and 7-8 of these players should also feature in the upcoming T20 World Cup 2026. Aside from this strongest playing 11, 2-3 players have the extreme quality to feature in T20 World Cup 2026, and that can be seen from the below-mentioned playing 11 of alternate best players for IPL 2025.

IPL 2025 Alternate Best Indian Players Playing 11

Abhishek Sharma, Shubman Gill, Sanju Samson (c&wk), Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Nitish Reddy, Washington Sundar, Harshit Rana, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohammed Shami & Kuldeep Yadav.