Indian cricket refused to sit still in 2025. It shimmered, stumbled, rose again, and then left behind an aftertaste mixing pride with discomfort. It was a year that gave India everything and still managed to ask uncomfortable questions.
There were trophies. Big ones. There was history, too. And there was also loss of the sense that Indian cricket, especially in Tests, always knew where it was going.
If there was a single emotion that defined the year, it was ‘uncertainty’.
The women showed the way. Quietly, confidently, without the noise that usually follows Indian cricket. It began with the Under-19 side defending their T20 World Cup crown.
And then came the breakthrough.
Harmanpreet Kaur’s team were never the favourites in the 50-over World Cup. Yet, they beat Australia, New Zealand and in the final, they outplayed Proteas to lift a trophy long eluded them.
It was a shift. With contracts improved, endorsements followed. The women’s game, long starved of attention, felt like it belonged at the centre of Indian cricket rather than on its fringes.
The men showed what an year of contradictions actually look like.
They won the Champions Trophy and Asia Cup back to back. In white-ball cricket, India looked clinical. The trophies came home, and with them some breathing room for head coach Gautam Gambhir, whose tenure had already begun attracting scrutiny.
But Test cricket told an unsettling story.
The seeds of decline had been sown during the 2024–25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. India lost 3–1 in Australia, and with that series came the end of an era. Ravichandran Ashwin had walked away mid-tour.
Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma followed soon after, drawing the curtain on two careers that had defined Indian Test cricket for over a decade. Cheteshwar Pujara, the glue in the middle order, joined them.
What followed was transition, but without the comfort of stability.
Shubman Gill took over the Test captaincy with confidence. His bat spoke loudly in England, where his 754 runs at an average of 75.40 placed him second only to Don Bradman among touring captains. India escaped with a 2–2 draw.
A comfortable home series win over West Indies added to that belief.
And then everything that happened was unsettling.
South Africa came to India and out-thought, outplayed and outlasted the hosts.
Simon Harmer’s off-spin exposed a vulnerability that had been growing for over a year. Once upon a time, touring spinners left India bruised and broken. Now, Indian batters looked unsure even against modest turn.
In one match, a target of 124 proved too steep. In another, India were bowled out for 93. The final blow came in Guwahati, where South Africa handed India their heaviest-ever Test defeat — by 408 runs.
India slipped to sixth in the World Test Championship standings. With tough tours of Sri Lanka and New Zealand ahead in 2026, the road to the final now feels distant.
Since Gambhir took over, India have won seven of 19 Tests. Only Duncan Fletcher endured a poorer run. For a team once defined by resilience, the numbers tell a sobering story.
Yet, the year refused to stay dark.
White-ball cricket continued to glow. India went unbeaten through the Champions Trophy and Asia Cup in Dubai, asserting dominance in conditions that now feel like home.
With two T20 World Cups on the horizon hope still flickers.
Off the field, change was constant. Mithun Manhas replaced Roger Binny as BCCI president. Familiar faces like Sourav Ganguly and Venkatesh Prasad re-entered administration. Power shifted, as it always does in Indian cricket.
Then came the moments that had nothing to do with runs or wickets.
The Asia Cup became a theatre of geopolitics. Following the Pahalgam terror attack and a brief military escalation, India refused to engage in customary handshakes with Pakistan.
The standoff escalated when Indian players declined to accept the trophy from ACC chief Mohsin Naqvi. The silverware remains locked in Dubai and continues to symbolise of how sport and politics have collided.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru finally won the IPL after 18 long years. Virat Kohli stood at the centre of it all, redemption complete. But outside the Chinnaswamy Stadium, chaos unfolded. A stampede claimed 11 lives and injured dozens more.
On May 12, Kohli retired from Test cricket. He left with 9,230 runs, countless memories, and a legacy that reshaped how India played and thought about the longest format.
In 2025, there was glory, and there was grief. There was progress, and there was regression.
A year of glorious uncertainty.