LSG finished on 14 points and occupied sixth spot on table – level with fourth-placed Chennai Super Kings, who still have a game to play on Saturday – but their net run rate of -0.667 was not enough to push them into the top four.
“At the beginning of the season, I really felt that we had a strong team and had most bases covered,” Rahul said after the game. “[We had] a couple of injuries obviously, which happens every season to every team, but those injuries and the guys that went away really dented us a little bit, and we didn’t play well enough collectively.
“When the bowlers had a good game, the batters wouldn’t have a good game. We just didn’t come together as much as we would have wanted to.”
LSG had come into the season with a reputation for defending totals, and they lived up to it the first three times they batted first. However, their bowling took a hit in the second half of the competition, with injuries to key bowlers like Mohsin Khan and Mayank Yadav, and they struggled to defend totals.
But in Mumbai, even after the hosts enjoyed an 88-run opening stand in 8.4 overs, their bowling unit came together to effectively blunt the opposition by the 15th over. Naman Dhir, batting at No. 7, gave them a scare with a 28-ball 62 not out, but LSG got through.
Langer acknowledged that they missed the services of Mayank and Mohsin, but felt that their sloppy fielding “really killed us in the end”.
“We missed Mayank, he was huge. Mohsin [Khan] had quite a sore back for some of the tournament. But I think dropped catches is the thing that really killed us in the end.”
But against MI, LSG held on to all their chances – five catches taken on the field. Krunal Pandya and Ravi Bishnoi took a brilliant catch each to send Dewald Brevis and Suryakumar Yadav, respectively, packing.
“Today was a really good performance,” Rahul said. “This is the kind of game we wanted to play more where batters are scoring, and bowlers are doing their job. Unfortunately, we didn’t do that, so we find ourselves here.”