SWOT analysis of Rajasthan Royals for IPL 2025

Rajasthan Royals (RR) were crowned as the first-ever winners of the Indian Premier League (IPL) when they defeated the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the 2008 finals. The IPL 2008 champions also played the grand finale in 2022 where they suffered a disappointing defeat at the hands of Gujarat Titans (GT). During the IPL 2024 season, the Rajasthan Royals ended up losing the Qualifier 2 encounter against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), after having won as many as 8 matches and suffered a total of 5 losses. However, Rajasthan Royals will be hoping to win their second title this year as they have included some exciting talents in their side. RR will be playing their first IPL 2025 match against the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium in Hyderabad which will be an afternoon game on 23 March, 2025. 

Strength: Rajasthan Royals have one of the strongest core of Indian batters

For the Rajasthan Royals, the explosive duo of skipper Sanju Samson and Yashasvi Jaiswal will be opening the batting and both these players have performed impressively during the last couple of IPL seasons. Jaiswal smashed more than 600 runs during IPL 2023 while Samson notched up over 500 runs in the previous edition of the T20 tournament. The RR middle-order includes the newly picked Nitish Rana alongside the exciting duo of Riyan Parag and Dhruv Jurel. Riyan had a breakthrough IPL season with the bat in 2024 where he smacked more than 500 runs at a brilliant strike-rate of close to 150. Therefore, Rajasthan Royals have regrouped one of the strongest Indian core of batters for IPL 2025 which is their biggest strength this season. 

Weakness: Lack of batting depth

If we take a look at the entire batting line-up for the Rajasthan Royals, the likes of Samson and Jaiswal will be the openers while the middle-order consists of Rana, Parag, Jurel and Shimron Hetmyer. This also means that they are lacking a bit of depth in the batting as they will have to play someone like Wanindu Hasaranga at the No.7 batting position. Although RR have picked 30-year-old Shubham Dubey who has done really well in the domestic circuit, he still lacks experience of playing in the Indian Premier League. It was really important for them to pick a few all-rounders in the Rajasthan Royals IPL 2025 squad who could have contributed with the bat in the finisher’s role and this can prove to be a huge miss. 

Opportunity: Rajasthan Royals have a good chance to bring home their second IPL title

It is a big fact that the Rajasthan Royals have performed consistently well during the last few editions of IPL, however, they have been really unfortunate to not have crossed the finishing line. With a strong Indian batting line-up and some talented bowlers in their squad, Rajasthan Royals have a really good chance of winning their second IPL trophy in 2025. However, in order to make that dream turn into reality, all of their players will have to perform to the best of their abilities both in the batting as well as bowling departments. A lot will depend on the performance of Rajasthan bowlers if they have to do well in the Indian Premier League 2025 season. 

Threat: Fragile pace bowling line-up

While talking about Rajasthan Royals' pace bowling attack, the likes of Sandeep Sharma, Tushar Deshpande, Akash Madhwal, Yudhvir Singh Charak and Ashok Sharma are the Indian names. They have also picked the overseas fast bowling trio of Fazalhaq Farooqi, Jofra Archer and Kwena Maphaka. Out of all these pacers, Archer is one of the most injury-prone cricketers and his performance has also gone down to a great extent after returning from a back injury at the international level. On the other hand, bowlers like Deshpande, Sandeep and Madhwal have delivered some impressive performances with the ball in the previous few editions of the IPL, but the RR pace bowling attack is still lacking a big name who has performed consistently well both in IPL and international cricket.