Gujarat Titans made a stunning run to the title in 2022 and were within a ball of defending their crown in 2023, but this season has been disappointing. After topping the group stages in the first two years, they enter the final game having already been knocked out.
Was their slump down to a change of guard with their captain Hardik Pandya leaving? Have they missed Mohammed Shami? Did Shubman Gill's form last year hide their struggles, which were amplified even more by his patchy form this time?
The ripple effect of Gill's form
When Gill walloped a 50-ball century against Chennai Super Kings, he celebrated it with a gesture that seemed like a release of the pent-up frustration.
He started the season with promise, hitting 255 runs in his first six games at a strike rate of 151.78, but form deserted him midway through. His next five, until he broke the run drought with a century, brought just 67 runs at just about a run a ball.
This was in sharp contrast to last year when he made 890 runs and three hundreds. In six of the seven innings he passed fifty, he struck at over 160. His consistency, jaw-dropping strokeplay, and transformed six-hitting game - Gill's 33 sixes were the third-most - meant him not being in India's T20 plans was inconceivable.
How times change.
Gill's mixed returns this time had a ripple effect on GT's top order as they were the worst team in the powerplay (run rate 7.23). It didn't help that Wriddhiman Saha, who gave them a jumpstart more often than not last year when he made 371 runs, also battled wretched form.
His average of 15.11 this season is the lowest among all openers who have played at least nine innings in the powerplay. Saha's absence for the CSK game led to Sai Sudharsan opening the innings, instead of playing at No. 3.
Unlike Gill and Saha, Sudharsan has been consistently among the top run-getters this season, but he has been challenged in the powerplay, especially against pace. His strike rate of 114 in this phase was the lowest among batters with nine innings.
Sudharsan, like Gill, upped his game by several notches in their win over CSK by hitting 103 off 51 balls. From being stuck at 28 off 23 in the powerplay, he managed a sensational acceleration through the middle overs - another bugbear for GT (they were also the slowest through that phase until this game) - helped tide over the slow start.
While Sudharsan has topped 500 runs, there will be conversations around his powerplay game - something he acknowledged was a work in progress - when GT do their post-mortem.
The middle-order muddle
Hardik hit the high notes in their first two seasons as a batter, often pushing himself to No. 4 to absorb pressure and allow the trio of David Miller, Rahul Tewatia and Rashid Khan to finish. He made 487 runs in 2022 and 346 in 2023. But in his absence, GT struggled to find the right balance.
Last year, Vijay Shankar batted in ten innings for them in the middle order, hitting 301 runs. This time, he struggled for form before losing his place halfway through the season. Shahrukh Khan, a big auction pick, came into the mix only when they were already on a downward spiral.
Azmatullah Omarzai, brought in to lend balance as an allrounder, didn't have the kind of batting impact they would've hoped for; his four innings brought just 42 runs.
Miller was given a bigger middle-order role, but he managed just one half-century this season; his struggles, particularly through the middle overs - he struck at just 123, were revealing. Tewatia, too, found it increasingly hard to force the pace, striking at 77 in the middle phase.
All that accumulation in the middle didn't translate into a big finish either and GT found themselves ranked ninth in the death overs. Being significantly behind the rest of the teams across all batting phases left their bowlers with too much to do.
Of course, some of the imbalance in their XI (or XII) was down to injuries, too. Robin Minz's absence - he's a big-hitting wicketkeeper-batter - forced them to stick with Saha as an opener, while BR Sharath, Minz's injury replacement, played all of one game. In all, GT used 23 players, the most by a team this season.
The Shami factor
Shami's hard length and pronounced seam movement was too hot to handle last year. His 17 powerplay wickets - the highest for a bowler in an IPL season - at an average of 19.41 and economy of 7.5 proved menacing. But a longer-than-usual recovery period from an ankle injury ruled him out for this season.
This meant GT had to shuffle around their options, including trying Mohit Sharma, their designated death-overs bowler, in the powerplay. Sandeep Warrier, Shami's replacement, briefly sparkled while Umesh Yadav had a stop-start season. Spencer Johnson, among their costliest auction signing, found no swing either and was taken for plenty.
All told, it is perhaps Mohit's tailing off in the death overs that hit them hard. The side with the best death-overs economy last year, thanks in no small part to Mohit, was now being taken for plenty in the same phase.
Having picked up eight wickets in his first six games at an economy of 9.39, including match-winning spells against Mumbai Indians and Sunrisers Hyderabad, Mohit endured a mid-season slump. This included being carted for 73 in four wicketless overs - the most expensive figures in the IPL - against Delhi Capitals. While he returned to make an impact with 3 for 31 against CSK, their playoff chances were all but over.
Rashid's lack of bite
Wickets haven't come as frequently as Rashid would've liked; he has picked up 12 wickets in ten matches so far this season. It's also perhaps a sign of teams being more adventurous, with the Impact Player rule giving them more batting depth, that Rashid's economy of 8.30 in the last two seasons is much higher than his economy of 6.59 when they won in 2022.
Four times this season, the most in his IPL career, Rashid has had an economy of ten or more in a match. Also, for the first time since his IPL debut in 2017, Rashid has been wicketless in three consecutive games. Rashid has himself spoken about how a back surgery prior to the season has had its aftereffects on him.
"It did initially in the first few games," he told the Cricket Monthly. "Like, when I was bowling my wrong'un, it wasn't going how it should, because for that I have to use my back more than for legspin. I had that nagging doubt at the back of my mind, so even if there was a bit of stiffness in my back, I would get scared."
These persistent injury woes have had a trickle-down effect on his execution, which seemed pronounced when Will Jacks hit him for 29 runs, including four sixes, in an over to help RCB to an easy win in Ahmedabad.