Days after being left out of IPL 2025 commentary panel, former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan has predicted his top four teams who can reach the playoffs. The 40-year-old started his own YouTube channel on cricket analysis and predictions on March 22 after he was dropped from the commentators roster as the broadcasters were reportedly not happy with for bringing in "personal grudges" on-air. The 18th edition of the cash-rich league kick-started on March with Royal Challengers Bengaluru defeating the defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders by seven wickets.
Speaking on his show 'Seedhi Baat with Irfan Pathan' on YouTube, Irfan predicted that according to him, Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Mumbai Indians (MI), Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Delhi Capitals (DC) will reach the playoff of IPL 2025.
Talking about these four teams, CSK, RCB, and DC began their respective campaigns with brilliant wins. CSK defeated their arch-rivals MI by four wickets. RCB edged past KKR by seven wickets in the opening match.
Lastly, DC registered a thrilling one-wicket victory over Lucknow Super Giants in Visakhapatnam.
In IPL 2024, out of these four teams, only RCB could make it to the playoffs, where they lost against Rajasthan Royals in the Eliminator match.
Talking about Irfan, the former all-rounder recently took to X (formerly Twitter) and revealed that his new YouTube channel has crossed over 100k subscribers in just six days.
Earlier, a report by Times of India (TOI) had stated that Irfan was snubbed from the panel as the "broadcasters were not happy with him bringing in personal grudges on-air and even on his social media handle."
"Pathan had a fallout with a couple of players a few years ago. Since then, he has not shied away from referring to them aggressively. The matter was raised that other junior players got caught in the crossfire. He has been accused of taking potshots at them on social media platform even if he didn't name them," the report quoted a BCCI source as saying.
However, Irfan is not the first high-profile player to be stripped off the commentary duties. In 2020, former India batter Sanjay Manjrekar was removed from the commentary panel by BCCI for India's ODI series against South Africa for his controversial 'bits and pieces' remark on Ravindra Jadeja during the 2019 ODI World Cup.